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.

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.

UK pensioner poverty is among the worst in Europe – only Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia abandon their pensioners to a greater degree.  France spends over twice as much on pensions as the UK, Germany two-thirds more.

It is simply not true to say that the UK cannot afford better pensions when nearly every other European country does better by their pensioners.  The truth is that the value of the state pension has gone from being worth 25% of average male earnings to just 15%.

The basic state pension is currently £202 a week, worth only 57% of the government’s official weekly pensioner poverty level of £178.  Two and a half million pensioners in the UK live below that level.  Even before the above inflation energy price rises this year. 3.5 million pensioners lived in fuel poverty.

Many pensioners therefore rely on means-tested benefits like the pension credit, council tax benefit and housing benefit.  However, because of the stigma attached to claiming, over a million pensioners entitled to pension credit do not claim it.

Research by the Left Economics Advisory Panel estimates that the cost of means-tested benefits is £13bn per year.  This state of spending would not be necessary if private sector employers provided their staff in the same way as the public sector.  However, the proposed cuts to public sector pensions would mean that more and more public sector workers will be eligible for these benefits too.

The state pension age is currently proposed to rise from 65 to 66 by 2020, 67 in 2034 and to 68 by 2044.  We believe this is deeply regressive and will have a disproportionate impact on the poorest people.

Although the average person is living longer, there are massive inequalities in life expectancy: men and women in the wealthiest areas live 10 years longer, on average, than those from the poorest areas.  The wealthiest can often afford to take early retirement too, whereas the poorest often already have to continue working beyond the state retirement age.  Just because we are living longer, it does not necessarily mane we are fit to work for longer: 40& of people aged 65-74 have a disability of illness that limits their quality of life.

Pensioner poverty also intensifies the prejudices that exist over people’s working lives.  Women, disabled and ethnic minority pensioners are far more likely to be in poverty because they are discriminated against by employers.

Over several years, governments have allowed companies to abandon their pension duties to their staff, allowed the state pension to fall further and further behind living standards, and today’s government is now attacking public sector pensions too.

We don’t want equality of misery, but fair pensions for all: public, private and state pensions.

The collapse of private sector pensions is one of the greatest outrages of our time.  Just over a decade ago nearly half of all private sector workers were in a workplace pension scheme; today it is only a third.  The cost of that decline will be borne by the taxpayer through increased eligibility for means-tested benefits such as pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit; greater health and social care costs; and an increase in our already shocking levels of pensioner poverty.

However, while pensions have been ripped away from ordinary workers, the directors of large companies continue to net very generous pensions averaging £175,000 per year in retirement.  These generous fat cat schemes at the top lapped up the bulk of the £37.6bn in tax relief that private sector pensions get every year.

The only reason why companies have dumped pension schemes is to give more money to senior management and more profits for shareholders.  Corporate profits have expanded from 13% of GDP in the mid-197s to 21% today, and executive pay has risen several times the rate of the average worker.

In the 1990s, according to Inland Revenue figures, corporate Britain saved itself £18bn through pension holidays, while employees continued to contribute.  As the stock market declined many pension funds went into deficit – employers cut pensions rather than repay the monies avoided.

This graph shows the proportion of private sector workers in defined benefit schemes (red line) compared with corporate profit margins (grey line).  What the graph shows is that in the last 13 years the level of corporate profits has remained relatively constant, yet companies have closed defined benefit schemes at an alarming rate.

The number of private sector employees in defined benefit schemes had fallen from 34% in 1997 to 11% last year.  At the same time the proportion of workers in any occupational scheme has fallen from 46% to 34%.  Despite all the talk of corporate social responsibility, fewer and fewer companies show any responsibility to their own staff.

For the 11% of private sector workers still in a defined benefit scheme the average pension is £5.860 – about the same as the £5,600 average public sector pension, which demonstrates that is that is not a ‘gold-plated’ amount.  In fact it is less than half the income of a full-time worker on national minimum wage.

It has been estimated that changing pension indexation from RPI to CPI in the private sector would save employers £100 billion over the lifetime of existing schemes.  This would be a direct transfer or wealth from employees to shareholders.

Women in the private sector are likely to be in a far worse state than men – not just because of the earnings gap – but because many of the jobs done by women in the private sector (especially retail, catering and cleaning roles) come with no pension provision at all.

The media is full of scare stories about the escalating and unaffordable costs of pensions, and that people are living too long.  The reality is that employers are failing to pay their share – and that is unfair.

In 2012 the National Employee Savings Trust (NEST) will be established for workers with no occupational scheme.  However, NEST will take more from employees than employers and will not provide a decent pension.  The main beneficiaries will be the private pension industry.

Attempts to pit private sector workers against public sector workers are divide and rule.  The responsibility for the removal of pensions for private sector workers lies with employers and shareholders.

Private sector pensions are also heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.  Research by Richard Murphy shows that private sector pension schemes received £37.6bn in tax reliefs in 2007/8 – that same year they paid out pensions worth only £35bn.  As Murphy states, “Pension fund performance over the last decade has been a history of almost perpetual loss making despite the enormous subsidies.”  A quarter of that pensions tax relief goes to the richest 1%.

The pensions of public sector workers have come under intense scrutiny in recent months, with ministers and the media describing them as ‘gold-plated’ and ‘unaffordable’. Currently public sector workers are being told they must pay more and work longer for a lower pension – but is this necessary?

Last year the government asked Lord Hutton to lead an independent commission into public sector pensions. His report showed that their cost is falling over the long-term as the graph above demonstrates; falling from 1.9% of GDP today to a little under 1.4% by 2060.

The graph above does assume the government’s change to pensions’ indexation from the RPI inflation measure to the CPI measure.  This could reduce the value of the pensions by over 20% over the course of an average retirement.

However, a report into public sector pensions by the National Audit Office, published in December 2010, does not take into account the indexation change, nor does it make any assumptions about the size of the workforce.  It shows reforms agreed between the unions and the government in 2007-08 “reduces costs to the taxpayers by 14%” and “long-term costs are projected to stabilise around their current levels as a proportion of GDP”.  So even without these assumptions the costs are still not rising, but stable.

The Hutton report also “firmly rejected the claim that current public service pensions are “gold plated” …the median payment is around £5,600″.  This equates to just over £100 per week in retirement.  For a woman worker in local government the average pension is just £2,000.

Despite these facts taken from the government’s own commissioned report, ministers have continued to misrepresent public sector pensions and are simultaneously attacking the age at which they retire, how much they pay, and how much they get at the end.

This attack on public sector workers’ pension rights coincides with a pay freeze and, for many, their job being under threat too.  A significant minority of workers have said they will opt-out of schemes if they are forced to pay more for a smaller pension.  Opting out will mean a larger burden on the taxpayer in extra means-tested benefits.

It is only four years since public sector pensions were significantly re-negotiated with the previous government in a deal that meant for new starters the retirement age rose to 65, and future costs capped.  The pensions deal in 2007 was assessed in December 2010 by the National Audit Office, which found it “on course to deliver the saving and stabilise pension costs”, and will save £67bn for taxpayers.

The strike on 30th June gave the issue of public sector pensions increased profile in the media and exposed the government spin about affordability.  The government now says it’s about fairness but its proposals will lead to an inequality of misery: unfair to all.

In effect the coalition government is imposing a tax on public sector workers to pay for the mess made by the banks:  George Osborne said as much in parliament, “from the perspective of filling the hoe in public finances, we will seek changes that deliver an additional £1.8bn of savings per year in the cost of public sector pensions”.

There is also an ulterior motive in cutting pensions, as it will make public services more attractive for privatisation.  The CBI boss John Cridland has said public sector pensions are “a brake on competition and make it harder for those in the private sector to bid for public service contracts”.

As the next chapter demonstrates, private companies have withdrawn providing fair pensions to their employees, and they do not want fair pensions for public sector workers transferred to them.

Trade unions representing millions of workers are fighting this attack through legal action, political campaigning and industrial action.

Starting from today I will be publishing the contents of the pamphlet in instalments.

Introduction: a crisis of fairness

There is an economic crisis in the UK, but it was not caused by excessive public spending or the ‘gold-plated’ pensions and pay of public sector workers.  It was caused by a recession triggered by the banking collapse of 2007.  Now there is another crisis: a crisis of fairness in which those who caused the economic mess are forcing everyone else in society to pay for it.  It is clear whose side Cameron’s cabinet of millionaires is on.

Trade unions represent people in the public, private and voluntary sectors.  Our members will often experience each through their working lives – as will their partners, friends and family.  Good occupational pension schemes are important wherever you work.

Most pensioners are reliant on the basic state pension for the majority of income in retirement, but it pays below the government’s own poverty line.

Disgracefully today there are 2.5 million pensioners living in poverty in the UK.  Only on in three private sector is now a member of an employer-sponsored pension scheme, public-sector pensions are under threat, and the state pension is now worth just 15% of average male earnings.

On the other hand a quarter of all tax relief on pensions, amounting to more than £10bn annually, goes to the richest 1% in the country.  We hear about gold plated public sector pensions, yet the real gilded pensions are to be found in the boardrooms of private companies that have abandoned provision for their workforces.

There is a crisis of pensions in the UK but it’s not that we’re living too long or that pensions are unaffordable; it’s a crisis of fairness.  In retirement, as in working life, we are highly unequal.  UK pensioner poverty is among the worst in Europe – only Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia abandon their pensioners to a greater degree.

Action is needed to secure decent state pensions as the foundation for pensioner income and decent employer-sponsored pension provision for all workers in all employment sectors.

A letter published in the Financial Times on 25th February 2011 exposes the myth of the Public Sector stereotype:

Looking to hire? You’ll get a great recruit from the public sector

From Mr Ian Watmore,

Sir, I read Brian Groom’s report (February 21) on the perceived limited employability of public servants in the private sector with great dismay. As one who has worked for 25 years in the private sector, and now six in the public sector, my message is simple.

If you are looking to hire into your company, forget the myths and stereotypes, you will get a great recruit from the public sector.

Why do I say that? Because I cannot think of a single skill that one needs in the private sector that people don’t develop in spades in the public sector.

Operational management? What about running a prison of sex offenders. Technology skills? Nothing comes close to the scale and complexity of the tax and benefits system. Commercial skills? Have you ever let a contract for a science facility that accelerates electrons to near light speed? Customer relations? We serve everyone from the young and old, rich and poor, ill and healthy. Turnarounds? A failing company is one thing, a failing secondary school on a sink estate is quite another. Mergers and acquisitions? Try taking over a collapsing bank in a weekend. Human resources? Just imagine what is involved in sending civilians into Helmand province. Security? I’d have to shoot you if I told you what our security services do on a daily basis, but, trust me, we are lucky to have them. Public relations? Well, we are always in the Thick of It!

Even business development is hugely in evidence as civil servants promote Britain’s interests abroad, or work in successful trading funds such as the Ordnance Survey or Companies House.

Public servants manage complex, multi-billion pound businesses – indeed, my last job oversaw an annual budget of £20bn. It is this level of challenge that continues to attract the best graduates every year. Latest figures show that more than 22,000 people showed an interest in just over 600 Fast Stream jobs.

In my six years I have managed staff in Norwich and Newport, Sheffield and Scotland, Warrington and West Midlands, Liverpool and London. I am proud of every one of them, for the unsung successes they achieve, and the family and national crises they avert. I learnt much in my 25 years in business, but I continue to learn so much in the public sector too.

Many former civil servants can be found in FTSE 100 companies at all levels. Only this week, one of my most senior managers is leaving to join a renowned multinational committed to innovation and technology. This should be no surprise. The civil service has invested heavily in increasing its professionalism and now compares favourably when independently benchmarked with the private sector.

As the public sector shrinks to balance the budget deficit, we are letting go many talented people, for whom the job itself is as much the reward as the remuneration.

So please, forget the stereotypes, and join the ranks of the enlightened companies that are hiring people from the public sector. They will give you a great deal in both senses of the phrase.

Ian Watmore

Chief Operating Officer

UK Government

Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office

Index – Media myths about civil and public services.

A colleague in another department requested I pick them up too, which meant a detour and more of my flexi time taken up!  I could cope with that until the confusing (and wrong) explanation of how to get to the pick up point, which left me feeling quite hassled.  Luckily one of my work colleagues tuned in to my irritation and helped me with that, he was able to confirm that I was right in the first place

So the background to what we were doing today:

8 September 2010

Two of the UK’s biggest public sector unions, UNISON and PCS, representing 1.7 million workers, have pledged to forge a powerful alliance to fight back against the coalition government’s cuts to jobs and services.

The unions are joining forces to campaign, co-ordinate and, where possible, take action in unity and support of each other.

The government’s assault on the public sector threatens the livelihoods of 750,000 public sector workers. Job losses are already leading to drastic cuts to services that people rely on especially the poor, the old and vulnerable.

The unions will campaign together to build support for a realistic alternative to the cuts agenda. One that would protect and create jobs to secure the economic recovery, tax the banks, big business and the super-rich. They will also campaign for the non-renewal of Trident, to put an end to wasteful spending on consultancy and agency staff, against expensive privatisation, and to build a fairer society.

The unions are setting up a national liaison group to promote joint activity and co-ordinate a national campaign together. The group will work with the TUC and co-ordinate public sector alliances across central and local government.

To forge the partnership further PCS and UNISON are organising a There is an alternative event with the aim of bringing together trade unionists, politicians, academics, voluntary and community groups.

Today local PCS members joined UNISON members on their Battle Bus which is currently touring the county to promote the message that there is an alternative to the public sector cuts.  It is important for us to campaign together to get results.

Thousands of people have protested in Birmingham against reduced public spending as the Conservative conference got under way in the city.

Speaking at the rally, Mark Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said strikes were “inevitable” to “turn the tide” against the cuts.

West Midlands Police estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people took part in the protest.

Ahead of the conference, Prime Minister David Cameron urged people to keep the cuts in perspective.

When the crowds got as close to the conference venue as they were allowed, they stopped in the road to make as loud a noise as possible.

The two-hour march passed through Lionel Street, Summer Row, Holiday Street, Gas Street and Broad Street.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Conservative party said: “Everybody has the right to peaceful protest.

“Birmingham is a welcoming city for all – regardless of their political views.”

Supt Dave Sturman, commander for the policing of the Conservative Party conference, said: “We are very pleased with the way the march has gone this afternoon.

“The protesters were peaceful and the operation went largely to plan.

“At this stage there have been no arrests and we have received no reports of any criminal offences, such as damage, as a result of the event.”

The event was organised by ‘The Right to Work‘ and the march was headed by PCS members.  Following the event PCS members had the opportunity to share their thoughts with Tory party delegates.

The full BBC article can be viewed here and photos of the event can be viewed here.

At this years annual conference the Public & Commercial Services Union (PCS) launched a booklet that provides information on the threats and consequences of privatising public services.  The document builds on  a series of forums that took place during 2009/10.

These forums examined and exposed many past failures of the privatisation of public services and made a case for well funded public services delivered by the public sector.  Although taking this stance the booklet is primarily a discussion document designed to be thought provoking and challenging, seeking to provide further debate on the topics covered.

PCS National Vice President John McInally speaking in his keynote speech:

Those who advocate privatisation forget history:  We must not.  The public services were won, in some cases, by generations of trade union and working class struggle in an effort to establish the basis of civilised existence in a society run for profit not people.  The private sector either could not or would not, or simply failed to provide effective and efficient public sector provision.  The broad mass of people in society, particularly working people, need the public services – generally speaking, the rich don’t.

The establishment of public services represent reforms that the profiteers despise and which they want to destroy or exploit for profit, yet the record of the private sector in delivering privatised services is lamentable.  The presentations by our Research Officers strip bare the political agendas and the performance failures of privatisation in health, transport, justice and other sectors.

The profiteers and the government have created what they shamelessly described as a “public services industry”, currently estimated at £79 bn per annum.  Big business have used the so-called Third Sector, i.e., the charitable and voluntary sectors as a Trojan horse, their words not mine, in order to gain access to government contracts.

John then goes on to say:

The reconfiguration or “reform”, as it is misnamed, of public service is about preparing for eventual privatisation.  Face-to-face contact is discouraged:  it is old-fashioned apparently.  consultants have sold to ministers ans senior civil servants the idea that call centres, telephony and electronic communication can deliver it all.

Of course there is a place for these new methods and technologies, but they can never be a replacement or substitute for the public service ethos of well-trained committed staff dealing with and resolving the complex problems of real people.  Poorly paid and trained staff working from a “one-size-fits-all” script simply cannot deliver an effective service to those who require them.

The proliferation of call centres in recent years has been based on an attempt to establish regimented, factory-style conditions, a remorseless target driven environment, preferably with a transient workforce that is young, inexperienced, non-unionised and compliant.  The strategic aim is to establish as few discrete units as possible to “deliver” the service at the lowest possible cost in order to hand over for privatisation so that profits can be maximised.

The booklet traces the history and origins of privatisation right back to the rise of industrial power:

The roots of privatisations also go back to the early 20th century and ruling class fears that universal suffrage in western societies would mean the erosion of their power and wealth.  As trade unions and mass labour parties looked like achieving the power to place control of natural resources and the “commanding heights” of the economy under democratic control, the business elite mobilised on several fronts to protect themselves.

They responded in two ways – organisationally and ideologically.  Organisationally, employers’ associations such as Aims of Industry combined to counter the rise of democratic socialism.  The goal of Aims of Industry was to “defend private interest against democratic reform with the explicit aim of countering the emerging pressure for nationalisation of industry”.  these days, powerful and influential bodies such as the Bilderburg Group and the Trilateral Commission bring together business and political leaders to develop long-term strategic plans to protect corporate power, destroy trade union influence, liberalise markets, privatise public services and to remove social protections created by national governments and labour movements.

After addressing the history of privatisation the booklet moves on to the application of the privatisation model in the UK and the use of Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Why PFI?  After the big State Owned Enterprises were sold off by the Tories in the 1980s and 90s, New Labour needed a different method to transfer public services and utilities to the private sector, even thought there was little evidence of better private sector performance.  In thrall to a “private-good, public-bad” mythology, and (more importantly) eager to direct lucrative public sector work to their friends in business and the city, Labour decided to enlarge the fledging PFI scheme.

PFI has many short-term advantages to government, but many disadvantages to wider society:

The public deficit is now £165 billion and the major political parties and most commentators consider this requires huge spending cuts:

Yet this deficit does not include over £200 billion of PFI debt repayment. Thus even where the government(s) speak of “ring fenced” budgets in health and education, this will still mean savage cuts in those areas as massive and mandatory PFI repayments are hidden within that ring-fence.  the media seldom reports this as it does not conform to their propaganda about feather-bedded public servants needing to tighten their belts, and raises awkward questions about private sector provision of public services.

Surprisingly the 1997-2008 labour governments privatised more civil service jobs than the Thatcher and Major governments combined.  In 2004 labour announced 100,000 job cuts in the civil service leading to increased outsourcing to fill in the gaps that had been left in service delivery:

Initially it was delivered through a massive programme of outsourcing government department’s facilities, IT and security functions, through which staff were TUPE transferred to private firms.  Much of this went on under the radar, usually only registering with the media when, for example, a national institution like the British Museum had so few security guards that it had to close important galleries to visitors.

The privatisation of the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) is perhaps the most glaring example of dubious privatisation.  although DERA was performing will, in 2003 the government decided to privatise part of it, and Private-Public partnership called “QinetiQ” was created, after which the 10 senior civil servants responsible for taking the company into the private sector saw their total personal investment of £540,000 transformed into £107 million.  Graham Love, the company’s CEO, saw his £110,000 investment turn into £21 million.  Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary, called this “obscene”, but the UK Minister for Defence Procurement described it as “a model for future privatisations“.

The booklet then moves on to privatisation and the media:

The modern idea of objective reporting is little more than a century old.  There was little concern that newspapers were partisan so long as the public was free to choose from a side range of opinions.  Newspapers dependent on advertisers for 75% of their revenues, such as the Guardian and Independent, would not have been regarded as independent by previous generations of radicals, trade unionists and socialists.  Balance was instead provided by a thriving working class-based press.  Early last century, however, the industrialisation of the press, and the associated higher cost of newspaper production, meant that wealthy private industrialist backed by advertisers achieved dominance in the mass media.  Unable to compete on price and outreach, the previously flourishing working class press was brushed to the margins.

Finally the booklet moves onto  Trade Unions and the media:

Trade Unions and the public sector do not enjoy good media coverage.  This makes it much easier to dismiss our arguments against the outsourcing and privatisation of public services.

The media’s subservience to power is demonstrated through the manner in which it selects headline stories, frames the order of discussion, and chooses (or excludes) specific interviewees.  Viewers of Sky, CNN and most other channels receive the latest data fro the Stock Markets with their breakfast – the FTSE 100’s statistics will scroll past on ticker tape keeping viewers up to date on industrial accidents, or the daily devastation of the rain forest.

The media’s response to the 2008 financial crash and the credit crunch is a case in point.  The very people who caused the disaster – bankers, stock brokers and hedge-fund managers – where wheeled into studios to explain it.  Trade Unionist, and those who long predicted that financial deregulation would produce this result, were excluded.  this media consensus made it much easier to forge a political consensus whereby, token noises aside, City bankers are left unmolested to reap huge bonuses from taxpayer funded banks whilst ordinary people relying on public services will suffer for many years to come.

As public services come under increasing attack from spending cuts and increased privatisation it is important to challenge the view that privatisation and cuts are the only way forward and to take every opportunity to promote the alternatives.

• The complete booklet can be viewed here.