Jo Swinson is one of the twenty something women who Ming has appointed to his Shadow team, as Scottish Spokesman. She's on the Daily Politics today and has landed herself in a little bit of trouble. As a member of the Ming team she has just committed the LibDems to compensate pensioners who have lost out on pensions misselling to the tune of £15 billion. She says the Contingency Fund should be used to compensate pensioners. I wonder what her colleague Julia Goldsworthy, the other twenty something woman in the Ming team, who is in control of LibDem public spending plans, will make of this? Assuming, of course, she knows how many zeros there are £15 billion (see below).
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
LibDem Spokeswoman Commits to Spending £15 Billion
Jo Swinson is one of the twenty something women who Ming has appointed to his Shadow team, as Scottish Spokesman. She's on the Daily Politics today and has landed herself in a little bit of trouble. As a member of the Ming team she has just committed the LibDems to compensate pensioners who have lost out on pensions misselling to the tune of £15 billion. She says the Contingency Fund should be used to compensate pensioners. I wonder what her colleague Julia Goldsworthy, the other twenty something woman in the Ming team, who is in control of LibDem public spending plans, will make of this? Assuming, of course, she knows how many zeros there are £15 billion (see below).
these Lib Dems really do have their heads up their own backsides.
ReplyDeletebut that's OK because if Jo and Julia ever got near the seat of power,money would start growing on trees and they could spend it without creating inflation because they're really nice people and mean well. infwatshun is only for de tories and layba cos dey is nasty people.
And before some anon starts banging on about giving youth a chance let's put it this way.Would you want some 27 year old looking after your kids inheritance?
"Would you want some 27 year old looking after your kids inheritance?"
ReplyDeleteThey already are. Have you ever met any fund managers?
Ah good Mr Cat "only five billion" that makes it all ok then (only a hundred quid a head). I wonder what the LibDems would cut to make such a payment. Probably something for the under-fives as they proposed at the last election, tiny tots won't be able to vote for a while...
ReplyDeleteWell, the Tories don't have a clue on this either. Not only did they get us into this mess, but their proposals are to use the so-called orphan assets to pay those screwed over by the system. Only the Chancellor has already promised the these funds to British charities. Still, no doubt Cameron can file this one under 'to be reviewed when I finally create some policies'.
ReplyDelete'They already are. Have you ever met any fund managers?'
ReplyDeletepossibly quite true but those who are manging funds at that age have a proven track record in the free market,not just making pronouncements and wasting council tax payers cash.
In my experience though,(I am in finance but not pensions)it normally takes years of succesful experience before being considered for a positon of relative autonomy in the industry.
the pensions industry is in real trouble.Caparo,a company employing some 4500 worldwide has called in the receivers because the trustees of it's pension fund want £36 million now that it can't pay.A lot of this is down to the way GB and co have stuffed the pensions industry with FRS 17,the withholding tax and their inability to cope with the brutal equity bear market before and after 9/11 (I refer to tehir slowness in relaxing liquidity ratios that forced companies to dump good stock for bugger all-the short sellers were all over them like a rash).
We're now faced with a situation where real yields on long gilts ar at record lows and the pensions companies are still having to buy them to comply with new rules.If this isn't a recipe for disaster then tell me what is.
If you think the Lib Dems and these two young things have any real idea of how to sort it out then you're more optimistic than I am.Oh sorry goldsworthy's time building links with local businesses in cornwall will be a real asset.
Hmm. I haven't read the Ombudsman's report, so I'm taking it as read that it concluded that the government was responsible for these people losing their money. That's the line that both Lib Dems and Tories have been taking, from what I've seen.
ReplyDeleteNow, if the govt. did cost these people $15bn then the govt. should pay for it. "Ah", you say, "but it's not the government's money they'd be using to pay it back". And this is true. But think about it. If the govt. did pay out £15bn, they'd have to raise taxes to cover it (or cut spending). The public would be horrified and turf them out of office for being so incompetent.
And this is supposed to be a bad thing?
I've just watched the interview online and she didn't commit the Lib Dems to it any more or less than the Tory guy committed his party, in his case looking at raiding dead people's bank accounts. I doubt that will raise £15bn either, but he seemed keen to state that the Tories would stump up the bill.
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased to see that Mr Dale, who takes great offence to election leaflets using the phrase 'straight choice' (because he believes it is offensive to gay candidates), has no such hesitations in using the phrase 'twentysomething woman' in a similar manner.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone surprised. Swinson is an airhead (in my humble opinion of course) who was probably attracted to the LibDems by these vacuous motherhood and apple pie policies and thinks she can repeat them verbatim and no one will notice.
ReplyDeleteChrist knows how she beat John Lyons who was actually a very intelligent and clever MP. But I suppose that's the new politics of who can stuff the most lies...sorry...leaflets through your letter box these days.
Frightening to think that democracy has become so shallow and dumbed down.