This is an exhibit from La Coupole, which is a fascinating and humbling place to visit. It is very interesting from a historical point of view and at the same time quite shocking that such a place existed. The time when I visited there was a temporary exhibition entitled “Deportation and genocide, a European tragedy”. The pictures in that exhibition were quite horrific.
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
18 Comments CherryPie on Dec 2nd 2011
The ruins of St Mary’s Abbey are situated in the Yorkshire Museum gardens. This is all that remains of the Benedictine monastery that was once one of the most wealthy and powerful in England.
The abbey estate occupied the entire site of the Museum Garden and the abbot was one of the most powerful clergymen of his day, on a par with the Archbishop of York.
12 Comments CherryPie on Dec 2nd 2011
12 Comments CherryPie on Dec 1st 2011
It is disappointing that government failed to engage in reasonable talks and discuss their proposed imposed changes to public sector pensions. The changes that were announced in advance of the study they had commissioned to evaluate those pensions.
The lack of proper negotiation led to the action that was taken by public sector workers today.
I found it quite infuriating to hear less than honest words spoken in the House today.
Below is an email sent from an MP to a PCS member last week. Highlighted in red are some key points:
Thank you for your email about the strikes next week. I have to be in Westminster next Wednesday, however my position is clear and this is what I am saying to anyone who contacts me.
The government must bear much of the responsibility for what is happening now because it jumped the gun and has, in effect, imposed a 3% tax on public sector workers, before John Hutton published his final report on public sector pensions, and then refused to negotiate on this crucial issue. This surcharge has nothing to do with the sustainability of public sector pensions and will hit public sector workers on low incomes hard.
It increasingly seems that the government is happy to see a disruptive strike. According to the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron has privately said that he is ‘delighted’ that the unions have walked into his ‘trap’. This is no way to approach the long term needs of the country and workers who believed they had a deal on their pensions when they set out on a public service career.. The constant mantra about “gold plated” pensions is quite frankly insulting. The average pension paid to pensioner members is around £7,800 per year, while the median payment is around £5,600. Half of women public service pensioners get less than £4,000 a year.
If more people opt out of occupational schemes because they cannot afford to pay this increase, it could end up costing the tax payer more in the future as more people rely on means tested benefits. The imposition of a 3% surcharge for all employees is not only unfair in the short term but also risks the sustainability of public sector pension schemes in the long term.
The government announced a three pence in the pound increase in contributions in the October Spending Review, long before Lord Hutton had published his final report. The 3 pence in the pound increase has nothing to do with the wider reform agenda outlined by Hutton. It is a measure which is simply geared towards paying down the deficit by squeezing public sector workers. The increase was imposed without any negotiation with public sector unions. This increase amounts to a 3p in the pound increase in tax for public sector workers, at a time when they are already facing a pay freeze, higher inflation partly driven by the government’s VAT increase, not to mention the biggest squeeze in living standards in a generation.
I know that people who rely on services don’t want to see a strike: from parents who will have to take a day off work to those who rely on home help. And public sector workers— nursing assistants, teachers and dinner ladies—also care too much about the people they serve day in day out to consider action as anything other than a last resort.
Rather than telling hundreds of thousands of low paid, part-time working men and women who are set to be much worse off that they should not strike, David Cameron should be taking responsibility and trying to negotiate a deal that’s fair to public sector workers and taxpayers alike. That is what I want to see and that is why I support the action that union members are taking..
My recent series of posts on pensions only skim the surface of why so many ordinary people decided to take strike action today.
18 Comments CherryPie on Nov 30th 2011
Conclusion: fair pensions for all
Nearly one in five of us , living in the UK, is over the state retirement age. A fair pension for all is affordable in the sixth largest economy in the world, if we choose it to be.
A pension is income deferred. Whether it is through national insurance of contributions to an occupational scheme, we have set aside income today to pay for our pensions tomorrow.
We like to think of retirement as a time of relaxation and leisure, but for very many people it is a time of hardship and stress with a growing proportion having to choose between heating and eating. Every winter tens of thousands of retired people die from cold-related illnesses.
We are all living longer and should welcome that life expectancy continues to improve, but those improvements have been very uneven, meaning that there is a huge life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest. We must also consider the impact of working longer on unemployment, the impact that has on young workers staring off. Youth unemployment is at the highest level on record. Finally, we ought to acknowledge that longer retirements are not necessarily unaffordable, but are a question of priorities and balance.
The government is proposing little to tackle the scandal of private sector occupational pensions, or the poverty level of the basic state pension. The government’s current attempts to cut public sector pensions will create more misery and more poverty in retirement.
6 Comments CherryPie on Nov 30th 2011
