The Conservative Party

[bluemoon32]

We sneer at the French but if this was happening there, Paris would be burning tonight. We are far far too passive as citizens

Thats why i love the French, they dont just shrug their shoulders or tut

 

[Jam Tomorrow]

We sneer at the French but if this was happening there, Paris would be burning tonight. We are far far too passive as citizens

The class system has completed ruined this country. I am starting to think this country gets the government it deserves. tip your cap to your betters, snipe at your neighbours if they have a better job or house or car, if people complain “who do they think they are!” Know your fucking place. And that ten days of bollocks when that old German heritage woman snuffed it well fuck me.

 

[Jam Tomorrow]

I believe he is booked on tonights Peston........ should be a giggle

Should be booked for a date with the executioner at the Tower of London along with other traitors.

 

[Strangerepublic]

Zen
I always found it a complicated subject and some of my understanding may be off as I retired a few years back.

Maybe and hopefully helpful is the following

The state pension is covered as long as long as enough folk continue to work and fund the lavish lifestyle of us oldies via NI contributions. The lower the overall sum of NI contributions the bigger the pressure on the gvmt finances. It’s why changes have been enforced on statutory retirement ages. Even putting payment commitments off by a year can have a big impact and help gvmts. Conversely the triple lock hammers the gvmt finances which is why the gvmt would love to do away with it. Ideal for the Tories would be a lot more pensioners dying, higher retirement ages to defer state pension payments and people working and paying NI for longer.

With regards public sector final salary type pensions many are 'unfunded' schemes in that there is no central fund, and they are paid for only by taxpayers year by year. Pensions of teachers, firefighters, NHS workers, the police and the armed forces are the best examples.

Of course MPs belong to a gold plated arrangement and
can choose to contribute at 1/40th, 1/50th or 1/60th In a final salary arrangement. It is a contributory pension with the contribution rates set at 11.9%, 7.9% and 5.9% of salary respectively. I think I understand that it’s about the best pension scheme still going. And why not coz they all work so hard for us commoners?

With regards most workers arrangements.
If you are in a defined contribution scheme like most folk your pension pot is safe and belongs to you and is invested in stocks and shares etc by whoever administers it. Of course, as the sales blurb goes the value of your pot can go up or down

If you are in (very luckily) a final salary scheme or have invested into a scheme that is now frozen or you’ve left it behind when working in a previous job it’s quite likely that a decent slug of the overall pot in the fund is invested in Gilts.
The last figure I saw was that overall in the UK Gilts account for some 20% of assets in these funds.

As the unit value of a gilt declines the organisation has to find a way to fill the shortfall to keep the fund topped up to assure that the liabilities can be met - where there’s a shortfall this is often done via a repayment plan.

This is what the reported worry is about. Where will companies find additional funds to top funds up as the value of Gilts falls….when often Boards of directors want to put shareholders dividends ahead of these payments or where the company is basically on its arse and has no spare cash or it wants to invest in technology or infrastructure or whatever to secure its future?

If any of these final company pension funds fail the default is the Pension Protection Fund. This security fund underpins the final salary schemes and takes on the liability and pays out a high percentage of peoples due pensions- some 90% I think.



Hope this helps

Thanks, truly excellent post

 

[kalouk]

I don't mean to ask a stupid question but is there anyway to repair this or is it a case of the damage is already done and there's no going back?

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

So let me get this right. If the Bank of England had not of stepped in today I could of lost all the money in my private pensions totaling nearly £30K?

Should I be worried for the future?

yep

 

[Brewster's millions]

"half the fucking country broke the rules, including Labour MPs " - you're talking through your arse mate unless you've got evidence to the contrary. Even if it were true, the PM is supposed to set an example and stick to the rules he set! FFS!
So what did he get done? The quick roll out of the vaccine I hear you parrot. So how come we've got circa 200k deaths, amongst the worst death rates in the world.
Wake up. Smell it.

Don’t like Johnson but the numbers behind the vaccine rollout were impressive.

And Starmer’s little booze up in Durham should have resulted in a fine as well.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

You're just being silly now. Actually you were being silly before.

I was a Remainer, I voted Remain and I campaigned on here passionately for the referendum to be re-run so we could get a remain victory. It just became obvious that in the end, that wasn't going to happen and mates persuaded me (I think correctly, in hindsight) that the Brexit vote was democratic and had to be respected. I've never been a fan of Boris - in fact I think he's a berk. But I do accept that he got things done, and I think he was extremely unlucky with COVID biting him in the arse not long into government. And the outrage over Partygate was rank hypocrisy by all concerned since half the fucking country broke the rules, including Labour MPs.

but its not a cult

 

[west didsblue]

Don’t like Johnson but the numbers behind the vaccine rollout were impressive.

And Starmer’s little booze up in Durham should have resulted in a fine as well.

The numbers behind the vaccine rollout would have been the same whoever was PM.

And Durham police don’t agree with you, and they’re the ones that investigated it.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Don’t like Johnson but the numbers behind the vaccine rollout were impressive.

And Starmer’s little booze up in Durham should have resulted in a fine as well.

Did Johnson actually do anything regarding the vaccine? He’s taken a lot of credit for not doing very much.

Starmer’s little booze up in Durham didn‘t result in a fine as the rules were different up there to in London. He could even have driven to a local castle to test his eyesight too, should he have so wished.