strike

[Marmora Man]

What do we do?

We deliver your babies.

We educate your children.

We treat your illnesses.

We deal with your emergencies and save your life.

We deal with your non emergencies even when your life doesn't need saving but you think it does.

We'll hold your hand when you're in crisis.

We'll protect you from yourself when you can't.

We fight your fires.

We investigate your crimes and prosecute your criminals.

We safeguard the vulnerable.

We protect the needy.

We assist the less abled.

We feed & shelter the destitute.

We'll wipe your backside when you've lost the ability to do it yourself.

Hell, we'll even bury or cremate you when you're dead if no one else will...

All necessary and important tasks. However, many of them are also provided by private providers (most of the healthcare aspects), many are delivered only with the support and assistance of private providers (law & justice, social care), many are part paid for through charitable support. The public sector is not alone in the roles you describe.

A few points:

The list you provided seems to imply that the public sector is, somehow separate doing "stuff" for the other part of society - you know this is not the case. EG: "We deliver your babies, fight your fires, hold your hand etc"

The public sector is part of UK society and provides services to all of UK society. It should not be shielded from the economic realities of UK life.

In my experience the healthcare element of your list could be a lot more effective and deliver very much more, more efficiently with less if it were better managed. I expect the same could be said of many other public services.

Your list of public services is, of course, funded by taxation. This is not, and cannot, be a bottomless pit. The taxpayer has every right to expect efficiency and value for money. A major element of the cost of public services is the ponzi scheme that is the current public sector pension arrangement. The unions, and their members, have developed the slogan (or whinge) "we'll have to work longer, pay more and get less pension" under the new proposals. Absolutely right - so will I and all your neighbours that are not in the public sector. This is the inevitable result of demographic changes, the recession, and pressures on government spending.

Your emotional call to arms does not change the economic facts of life. I can see no reason why the UK taxpayer should provide exceptional benefits to a nurse, social worker or a civil servant. Benefits such as a higher, average salary than the private sector, from a reduced working life and from an enhanced pension. Benefits that the average private sector employee does not enjoy and cannot afford.

edited for spelling

[Otta]

Anyone watch Question Time last night?

Thought Chuka Umunna (shadow business minister) was very good. Realistic about current climate, but sensible.

He'll do well.

[Loz]

I initially thought he was following the current 'say nothing' Labour policy at the moment, but he then came out with some interesting observations. Which probably means his career is toast.

[Chippy Minton]

It should not be shielded from the economic realities of UK life.

Yes it should, to the extent that if you want to keep the NHS?s founding ethos - free at the point of use; based on need, not ability to pay - it needs to be publicly funded. I certainly don't want to see a "state insurance provider" rather than a "state deliverer" and a two-tier NHS.

No one, especially health professionals, deny the enormous pressures that are mounting on the NHS budget, not least because of the aging population and the increasing prices of drugs, and that there needs to be change. The taxpayer also does have every right to expect efficiency and value for money, but that doesn't mean they are going to get it with the Tories' new Health and Social Care Bill.

The Bill is a gamble and the effects of competition are currently unknown. The Health Service Journal calculates that the new system as outlined in the Bill could cost ?1.2bn more than the current one and York University has conducted research that suggests the internal market has increased administrative and management costs to 14 per cent of the NHS budget and that the restructuring itself will cost up to ?3bn.

If the Bill isn't stopped I really hope that gamble pays-off. However, I'm not convinced it will and I'll be left hoping my GP will do the best for me rather than their budget.

BTW, as many of the services LuLu2 lists are provided by the private sector does that mean your beloved private service providers are "dull [with] doing nothing all day" and are "wasting the country's productivity" ? ;-)

[Loz]

Sweden's municipal rate is anything between 29% and 34.75% depending on where you live. However the 34.75% rate relates to Ragunda with a population of around 5,500.

UK = 20% (basic rate of tax) + 12% (National Insurance) + council tax = 32% + council tax (worth 3%)

As you well know Loz, the majority of tax payers are not in the high tax bracket. I have shown the vast majority of Swedes pays less tax than their UK counterparts if you disregard the tiny but ageing population of Ragunda.

Even if I followed your reasoning then the typical British worker pays more tax than their Swedish counterpart.

Nice try, but no. You are, of course, missing the important personal allowances. In the UK the first ?7,475 is tax free (rising to 8105 in 2012/3) whereas the Swede's allowance is about ?350.

So, tax paid in the UK for someone on ?25K = (?25000-7475)*32% = ?5608. For Sweden, assuming an average of municipal tax of 31.56% (the average rate) then your ?25k earner will pay (?25000-?350)*31.560% = ?7779.54. Or, if you like, the Swede on ?25K pays a whopping 38.7% more in actual income taxation that the Brit.

And then there is the not-very-small matter of the huge 25% Swedish VAT rate...

[????]

...and their Excise Duty :)-D

[Undisputedtruth]

Loz Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> Nice try, but no. You are, of course, missing the

> important personal allowances. In the UK the

> first ?7,475 is tax free (rising to 8105 in

> 2012/3) whereas the Swede's allowance is about

> ?350.

>

> So, tax paid in the UK for someone on ?25K =

> (?25000-7475)*32% = ?5608. For Sweden, assuming

> an average of municipal tax of 31.56% (the average

> rate) then your ?25k earner will pay

> (?25000-?350)*31.560% = ?7779.54. Or, if you like,

> the Swede on ?25K pays a whopping 38.7% more in

> actual income taxation that the Brit.

>

> And then there is the not-very-small matter of the

> huge 25% Swedish VAT rate...

I purposely left out the personal allowances due to the complexities of the tax system. Your figure for Sweden's allowance is sorry to say, incorrect. It also became more difficult to make a like for like comparison. For example Sweden takes into account commuting expenses while the UK doesn't.

Moving on to pensions, it would appear the Swedes have a very generous pension scheme where everyone pays 7% of their income. The Swedes dealt with their pension crisis in 1989 while in the UK have come nowhere near solving theirs in 2011. I'd suggest to the government to end the race to the bottom and turn their attention to creating a more sustainable pension for all.

[????]

...and the most obvious way to do that is to scrap all Public Sector pensions, maybe creating some way of switching equivalent contributions to date into a pension fund for the individual to buy an annuity when they reach retirement rather than any final/average salary computation and THEN making the state pension more realistic for all (maybe trebling it) with the open ended, evergrowing, liability of Public Sector pension fundiung removed.

Good luck with putting that fundamentally equal idea to the 'socialists'in the Public Sector.

[Undisputedtruth]

The Hutton report clearly ruled out other options for financing Public Sector pensions as they were 'gambling mechanisms'. Your idea is fundamentally flawed. Firstly, we have seen the poor stock market returns over the last 12 years and their impact on personal pensions. Secondly, the rippoff financial sector would make more money from your idea while the pensioner receives very little back.

[????]

Well apart from the 60% of private sector workers who have no current pension who would (with everyone else) see a trebling of their state pension. ...and the vast majority of those Private Sectors pension holders who have to buy an annuity now. The significant majority of pensioners to be.......or are you just thinking of 'your lot' rather than us all?

[taper]

"The most obvious way to do that is to scrap all Public Sector pensions"

Perfect. The race to the bottom is afoot.

[????]

Selective quoting Taper - read my whole post you idiot....including a massive hike in basic pensions, which would probably net out far better pension for the poorest Public Sector workers anyway

I'm looking for a race to the middleground not leaving 60% of the workforce with the state pension solely.

The 'race to the bottom' slogan is a handy typical emotive Left wing slogan meaning "We're alright Jack, sod the poor and there's no debate" as far as I can see

[Loz]

Race to the bottom. I can see the bankers adopting that one.

Oi, Banker - give up your million pound bonus.

No, no. Everyone should be aiming to get their own million pound bonus. Anything else is just a race to the bottom...

[Huguenot]

It's not a race to the bottom - it's perfectly reasonable that those who want early retirement should have it.

I don't think it's reasonable that private workers should be taxed to guarantee delivery. That's rude.

Save your money, reap the benefits. Don't have a continental holiday, live longer.

[taper]

An idiot indeed, but not a left wing one.

You though are a genius. I'd never thought of this as an option. What would it save the Exchequer?

[Undisputedtruth]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> The 'race to the bottom' slogan is a handy typical

> emotive Left wing slogan meaning "We're alright

> Jack, sod the poor and there's no debate" as far

> as I can see

Hardly, the message from the Public Sector is that the government should be spending more of their time sorting out the Private Sector pension. Otherwise, no doubt, they will be bailing out the Private Sector employees in their retirement.

[????]

With what? In case you haven't noticed most western governement's haven't got anymore money and have run out of credit. I know the left just won't have this but it's the truth.

[StraferJack]

There is a reason governments are short in cash

A "jobs creator" speaks. His inverted commas btw

[????]

Yup Like US taxes are the same as ours.......and we're stacked to the gills with US style billionairres

[????]

If you think taxing the mega rich is the answer then you're naive in the extreme in my opinion. Like we've enough of them who are british rather than the multiple foreighners who top our rich list(many of the rich brits may well be on their toes anyway - the rich don't tend to be that keen on paying loads of tax and there's always somewhere else wants their wealth - ask Denis Healey) And the Abromovitches and Mittals don't give a crap about british public sector workers they'll be off to Monaco or wherever. Nope thing are going to have to change wholesale and sooo many people are in complete denial about this. scrambling around clutching at various straws to get anyone else but ME to pay our collective bill rather than facing up to what we need to do as a country.

[????]

...and whilst i'm on it, the rather quaint idea that the big buck earners in the banks are almost exclusively British and so will stay in the UK out of some sense of loyalty or being at home and pay say 60%+ (as some are suggesting on the left) when they can pay 30% in Singapore or Geneva or wherever is another cloud cukoo idea held by many on the left and on here (oddly even by some big bank employees ;-).

[StraferJack]

You said most western governments so I gave an example

Of one that could do something. But the debate is largely the same everywhere regardless of number of billionaires:

"shhh don't ask the people with a lot of cash. Just take it off the others"

You are of course probably correct about those rich them fleeing elsewhere but can we at least complain about their selfishness rather than some public servant on 14k a year?

And from an American perspective does nothing in that article say "we CAN do something if we want to?"

[Chippy Minton]

IMHO it's a myth that the big buck earners are ready to ship out at the drop of a hat if we had 60%. They are here, London, because they want to live in London with all it has to offer. The vast majority I know and have come across, and I've come across a lot, are young (35 and under) and just wouldn't have any interest in a place as dull as Geneva or Singapore, regardless of tax rates.

I mean, where else would they go? Frankfurt! Yeah right, even duller than Geneva! New York? Possibly, but a lot have been there and done that and most of the Americans I've come across in London would do whatever was necessary to avoid that.

[Undisputedtruth]

The problem is, have seen already, the super rich are taking big financial bets and are reaping the rewards. Leaving losses for the tax payers to pick up.

[new mother]

To respond to people commenting on my post, yes of course there are people doing useful state work. But t here are far too many doing non jobs for local councils, counting the number of left handed people employed in the nhs, completing records for school children who need to be taught not annotated etc.

The public sector workers of my acquaintance work laughably short hours, and seem to have extraordinary flexibility in terms of time off while being reasonably well paid today, enjoying a level of job security that does not exist elsewhere in the UK and final salary pension rights that are out of kilter with their contribution to society. You have to understand the level of contempt private sector workers have for whinging ps workers. Politicians, bankers and categories of state employee deemed non producers are all on the same level these days in people's minds.

Having said this, clarkson is a bbc employee and as such should not be allowed to take a political stance, far less a nutty one....