Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that the Chancellor was trying to "destroy" the Turner Report before it had been published, the PMOS replied that his understanding was that the Treasury was disputing that interpretation this morning. As John Hutton would lay out, the important thing was that we waited for Adair Turner’s proposals before commenting, and also that we underlined the principles on which our response would be made. Those principles were that our proposals would be fair, affordable, encouraged people to save more.

Asked if the notion of "soft compulsion" fair and affordable, and were the linked-earning affordable, the PMOS said it would be better to wait until the report was published before commenting further.

Put to the PMOS that in the past, the Prime Minister had proposed a restoration of the link, the PMOS said again it was better to wait for the report. In terms of issues such as pensions credit, the commitments were there for the public, and they would be lived up to.

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that any discussion of the basic state pension would be outside of the remit of Adair Turner, the PMOS replied that on all of this, it was better to have an adult discussion on the basis of what we knew was in the report, rather than speculation about what might be in it. Lord Turner had been asked to do a serious analysis of the whole issue and we were sure that was what he would have done.

Asked that no matter what was in the report, how important was it that all Government departments involved in it supported the Prime Minister, the PMOS said that what was important was that we assessed the findings as they were in the report and that we responded in a way which translated John Hutton’s key principles into our proposals. That we would do.

Asked if the Prime Minister was expecting the options to lean in one direction, the PMOS replied that the Prime Minister was expecting it to be a serious analysis of both the issues and the responses that we should make to that. We would receive the report, but certainly in terms of the way Adair Turner had gone about his work, we believed it to be very serious.

Asked if the Prime Minister had read the report yet, the PMOS said the proper proprieties would be observed.

Put that it must be a matter of fact that someone in Government had a copy of the report, the PMOS said again the proper proprieties would be observed, and he was not going to get into a running commentary.

Asked if there was no prospect that this would "be kicked into the long grass", and this was a report that would be acted on sooner rather than later, the PMOS said "no" to the first part of the question, and the rest followed from that reply.

4 Comments »

The PMOS clearly understands "double negatives"

His answer was YES it will be kicked into the long grass
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 24 Nov 2005 on 5:24 pm | Link
I’m not sure that the PMOS actually understands anything at all, but the report is already deep in the long grass – particularly after Brown’s leaked ‘opinions’.

In any event neither Blair nor Brown – nor, indeed, the PMOS – will be around when the pension debacle happens. So what do they care? Witness Brown’s continuing spendathon of our money….
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 24 Nov 2005 on 7:46 pm | Link
I’ve still don’t understood why governments are so deeply wedded to the idea that the financial instrument that is a pension should be laundered through the stock market. While this feels rational in a personal sense, it creates vast economic distortions on the macro scale. Not least because the stock market is programmed to rip people off. The game is not for everyone, and those it’s not for, or who are "unlucky", get screwed. Whilst two million clients of Equitable Life lost their pensions, the stock market boomed. These are two sides of the same coin.

It’s all so very well just telling us to "save harder". But in what do we save?
Comment by Julian Todd — 25 Nov 2005 on 10:07 am | Link
Property in Eastern Europe is a good start. Buy a flat in a coastal region anywhere overlooking the Adriatic and you’ll realise a lot more cash than anything in the UK. South Western states in the USA is another growth region for property speculation – Arizona particularly.
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 25 Nov 2005 on 4:32 pm | Link

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» Thursday, November 24, 2005

Pensions

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