18 years of Thatcherite rule has ed to a decimation in value of the basic state pension, deliberately run down by severine the link between pensions and average wages established by Labour in the 1970s. saw a set-piece battle between penthat this link be restored, and Indeed Labour itself has been turung wit lacas of comporing workers into taking out a second, "funded" pension to compensate for the plunging value of the basic pension - ignoring the obvious problem that such a scheme simply widens and perpetuates the gulf in living standards between the best and lowest - paid workers.
But a fifth Tory term could lead to an even more brazen onslaught on this cornerstone of the wellare state, if right wing zealot Peter Lilley gets his way and plans for the privatisation of pensions. diately affect today's pensioners or weck would be siphoned from pay "approved" private pension scheme, along with an adottona. 5% of pay.
Assuming the company did not go broke in the meantime this should create a "por" of around likely to be little over 20% of the likely average carnings. As one critic predicted "A poor worker will progress to be a poor penThis miscrable level of income would be rejected out of hand by low the existing entitlement of carnings, who can expect a basic pension and State Earnings Kelated Pension Scheme (SERPS) payments of around 36% of their The Tory scheme offers nothing but misery for the unemployed, the low-paid, the part-time workers, and for women whose pay tends to be lower and whose carnings record tends to be broken by episodes of childbirth. It would that "The snag ... is that the guaranteed minimum would be so low as to make the safety net safe only for ascetics. For the unemplayed there appears to be inadequate assistance. Tet tae scacmic is moving in the same broad direction as Labour policy."
But of course the big pensions firms are eagerly fingering their calculators, totting up their likely commission from the diversion of a massive £40 billion from the state sector into private schemes, and backing the Tory plan to the hilt. One of the first to welcome Lilley's plan was Legal & General, one of the companies at the centre of the massive, unscrunulous sale of in appropriate private pensions to over 500,000 public sector workers in the great pensions scam of the 1980s. Only one percent of those fleeced by these companies has yet received the compensation they are owed.
Labour has ritually condemned the Tory plan - but has no policies that can win the confidence of six million pensioners, millions of whom now live in poverty.
Blair's team will not confront the central issue, that the everSocialist Ourook