EU Referendum


UK politics: vote Tory!


03/01/2015



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There have been few more offensive things in recent years than the payment of obscenely high payoffs to public sector officials, people we came to call "looters". But now, it seems, the Conservatives have pledged to end six-figure pay-offs in the public sector if they win the general election. 

Tory sources say that the party's manifesto will promise the swift introduction of a new ‘public sector redundancy pay cap' to end the culture of obscene "golden goodbyes" to fat cats employed by the State. In future, pay-offs will be limited to a maximum of £95,000 in all but exceptional cases.

Senior managers will also have to hand back a portion of their pay-off if they take another job in the public sector within 12 months, and the cap will be applied to people in existing jobs, not just those signing new contracts.

The new law will also cover the entire public sector, including the civil service, the NHS, local government and the BBC – where some pay-offs have approached £1million.

Altogether, this is a sensible and welcome move, and shows something of a "populist" touch which is calculated to win votes from all quarters. It will even attract support from lower-paid public sector workers, who are as much affronted by the largesse as are taxpayers at large.

More like this and I suspect the so-called "insurgency" parties may be left stranded, bereft as they are of ideas and vulnerable to charges that they are "policy-lite", where "real solutions, devised by real people, with real life experience", don't seem to be forthcoming.