Today Sid (remember him?) told me things would not be the same again...

TODAY I received a letter which raises to a new level my hatred of all things Tory and especially Mrs Margaret Hilda bloody Thatcher. And this is made worse by the fact that the cause of my rage - and fear - is yet another example of how the capitalist system she so admired cannot be trusted with the security and prosperity of its very own workers.

Today I learn that the National Grid, which has become my pension payer (more on that anon) is to salami slice its pension members into three buckets and distribute them willy nilly to a new bunch of as yet un-named and unattested corporations. This is because they have decided to reap the profits they have accrued by building up various bits of the business. Not you will note for my benefit at all.

Today they assure me that my pension is as safe as ever, regardless of which bunch of capitalist thieves my pension has been unilaterally dumped with. And I have no choice. And I will be told which bunch BEFORE the value of their bids is known! And they assure me I am safe because each third will be ring-fenced! What? I used to be assured by the whole business; now it just a bit of it.

Today for the first time in over 10 years of drawing my pension I am afraid. For myself and my wife, or as she may one day be, my widow.

Today I would willingly dis-inter Mrs Thatcher and hang her head from one of the lamps on Westminster Bridge. But enough about how I might enjoy myself.

For it was she, and her lap-dancing lackeys, who decided to sell off the family silver, as Haroold MacMillan called it. Each of the utilities on which the people of Britain depended and for whom thousands worked or were dependant were flogged off to the highest bidder. Oh yes she made sure the bitter puill was sweetened by Telling Sid and all the other greedsy ones who sucked up her share-owning democracry claptrap. Me included to a degree, though I missed out on two by being silly enough to be an adviser! Well-paid of course but ultimately robbed like the rest of Britain.

Worse was to come however. Mrs T understood that her decision was not actually all that popular for many reasons and especially not with some of her own. So she instituted the Golden Share, by which ownership althugh up for grabs,would remain in British hands. Not ideal but something to cling on to. And especially after she also instituted in the City the Big Bang, otherwise known as the first step towards fiscal armageddon in 2008.

But the Golden share had a time limit and when they expired takeover fever struck. Today hardlky any utilities are actually owned by British interest, certainly not in total. Worse still the Rolls Royce Golden Share attracted the attention of the EU and was ruled illegal in 2000 with inevitable results. I voted remain but if there was a reason not to this may have been it.

Now let's back up a bit. I will be the first to say, from experience, that the utilities were not perfect. They were not as efficient as they might have been. Some failed to 'wipe their faces' and relied on Government subsidies. But they and their workers all paid their taxes. And their workers were well paid and cared for, requiring little if anything during or after work from Government.

Some utilities did all that and made a profit, which went into the Treasury coffers, leaving the utility to beg money back for capital investment. That rule was actrually used asd an xcuse by Thatcher for privatisation – to 'free them from the shackles of Government'. That would be you then Mrs T?

Now every utility worker paid in to a big pension pot, along with contributions from the 'company'. They worked for up to 50 years and got decent pensions based on the decent pay they had received, mostly, during their working years. These pensions were in no way Government subsidised and indeed were good for the country as the recipients continue to pay tax and spend money of their own.

We all know about BHS and the Greening of their pension fund. And the Mirror Group and how Maxwell sank their pension just ahead of sinking himself. There have been others and Tata is bleating on right now about the steel poension fund.

The point here is that unlike the state pension all these pensions are wholly-funded. Indeed back in the days of sanity most of them carried surpluses which were used to lend to insdustry and the Government o pay for projects. The idea was that in the good years the pot got bigger than nmecessay to cover the bad years when it shrank. But caropetbaggers and other greedy bastards decided that ws not the way to do it. Instead in the good years they awarded themselves – the fund – and the pension contributors a 'pensions holifay' Guess what? Suddenly the lean years were really lean and a black hole started to develop.

Not satisfied with that Gordon Brown decided to dip into the funds generated by pension relief and robbed the entire syetm of billions of pounds.

Add Brown's buggeratioin factor to the purblind fools and their pensiun holidays and now most pension funds are actually UNDER-funded. And given the state of the investment market that uis not likely to change any time soon.

So the bigger the pension fundl. The more security we the pensioners have. And this matter todasy be=cause som,ething else happened to clobver pensions.

Back in the days of the un-privatised utilities they employed thousand, often more than perhaps wer entirely needed. But along come the sharop eyed accountants serving their sharp tongued bosses and productivity slashes the workforce. Great you cry – our bills will go down. Oddly enough not only have they not fallen, they have risen but that is another can of worms.

But see here – back then the number of pensioners was LESS than the number of contributing members. Not any more. Oh no. Today really rather small numbers of contributors are watching huge numbers of pensioners depleting the pot. Add to that the fact that us pensioners are now living longer than ever and a bit of snag emerges.

And so I worry when my pension fund trustees assure me I will be entirely safe when they chop me into salami slices and stuff me into a smaller bag.

And I worry more when they assure me, as if it were a good thing, that this smaller bag will be ring-fenced so it cannot infect the other bags (the ones we used to be able to rely on).

And I really worry when I realise that they are arbitraily slicing us into mixed packages to suit the new smaller bags.

See, I know how that will work and I don't like it. I don't like it one little bit.

For someone just turned 65 and starting to draw their pension is a much higher actuarial risk to the fund than the chap who is already 75 and had 10 years of pension.

And he or she is in turn more of a risk than the person in their mid-80s and starting to live on borrowed time (that is not a joke!).

And each of these is a greater or lesser risk depending on their gender since women live longer than men. Oh and there is the white-collar versus blue-collar thing as well.

So here we go – when the bids come in for the chunks of National Grid that are being sold one of the issues will be the exposure of the new company and its owners to the pension fund.

Now you know whay today was a very bad day for me and a vast number of National Grid pensioners.

And of course for the Government too, who may have to pick up the bill when one of these shiney new owners goes tits up and has robbed the pension fund blind.

NOTE: I worked for British Gas and they were my pension fund holders. Then it got taken over and various things happened and finally the electricity power people came along and gobbled it all up. Yum Yum, lovely.

BROKEN BRITAIN

Broken Britain** 

Age has already wearied, and too many years condemned, our youth to an uncertain future

DURING the mendacious and malevolent campaign for the referendum, from both sides, the fear was expressed that it placed at risk the social cohesion of Briain. And it sure has but not only in the way that had been predicted.

For today not only do we have heightened sensitivity to race, colour and even creed. Not only do we have an acute awareness of how the vote varied region by region and the 'blame' that can be attached to it.

And not even only (ouch!) do we have the expected outcome that Scotland stands separate and independent from all of the UK bar the London bubble.

Worse by far, we have a generational divide that some fear may not even be bridgeable.

For it is clear for all to see that while many of my age and older voted to remain in the EU very large numbers of Baby Boomers voted to quit. And pretty few young voters wanted out, seeing their much longer future better within.

Beyond that too is not just the inevitable aggravation of these young voters with their elders for 'letting them' down or simply being selfish. There is beyond them another huge tranche of youngsters who could not vote and who it seems would certainly have helped to reduce if not destroy the OUT majority.

And if we might hoped that some midway could be found then the mighty if dubious cry of “democracy, we must accept the verdict” probably destroys such hopes. Even if the EU might concur. Instead they, smarting at the rebuff, finally convinced of the perfidy of Albion and equally terrified lest the contagion spread have made it very clear indeed – you want to go so GO NOW.

It hurts me to say it but a lot of us told you so. And a lot of us were a great deal less sanguine about the Remain vote than too many in power.

We have ended up here due to the internal machinations of the Conservative and (dare I say it?) Unionist Party. Yet somehow it is the Labour Party tearing itself to pieces – and even that exacerbates the generational split. For many youth wanted another way and Corbyn seemed to some to be it.

There is little comfort in watching Clammy and Ozzie falling on their swords. It was the least they could do. But given the hovering horror of BoJO a MiGo and the bizarre aggrandisement of the chump Hunt things can indeed only get worse. It grieves me to say it but on this reckoning Theresa May is our ponly hope!

Why? Because if she gets to be PM the chance that Margaret Hodge could be leader of the Labour Party recedes – and while I back Corbyn I do NOT back any of the other candidates at all.

But back to the yoof situation. Not only are they going to spend a lot of time in the coming years on recriminations against us oldies – even their parents if anecdotes are even close to true – but they are about to find themselves further alienated. For there is scant chance that far right twerps who will rule the Tories for the next 5-10 years will take youth seriously. And if the Blairites have anything to do with it the young left will be strangled at birth.

The time has indeed come for electoral reform in the hope that Broken Britain can be mended:

• First of course must come Proportional Representation, to give value to each vote.
• Then some sensible rules to shunt referenda into their proper place – advisory.
• Then a lowering of the voting age to 16 to re-balance a bad equation.
• And finally and most controversially a cap on the qualification to vote at 80 years of age.

Most of those I know in that cohort are not frankly to be trusted with the honour. And I doubt I will be in a few years time. if now...

**Broken Britain is often attributed to The Sun and the Tory Party in 2007 but it has a longer and slightly more honourable past. It certainly started out in the later 1990s as Broken Society as in Britain is a... And it appears the BB version may have surfaced soon after. In about 2002 Ian Duncan Smith appears to have used it . Blair gets given it in 1995. My own recollection gives it to Michael Heseltine when he visited Toxteth after the 1981 riots and found himself once again a One Nation Tory, much to Margaret Thatcher's aggravation. But I could be dreaming. He was – the Treasury scuppered his plans.