Summer budget 2015.

[Al R]

We pretty much know what Osborne has got lined up for high earners in defined contribution pensions. But no one really knows how he will apply the methodology behind reducing tax relief to the public sector.
Could tomorrow's budget see the beginning of the end for senior public sector pensions, and/or have a chilling effect on those who aspire to seniority?

[Al R]

Public sector pay increases set at 1% for next four years. Battle of Britain bunker to be restored.

[Al R]

Annual pension allowance tiered down to £10k for those earning over £150,000 might not impact on many, but it should be focusing the minds of those in their 40s well on their way to breaching the Lifetime Allowance and about to leave.

[Al R]

Green Paper to consider treating pensions more like an ISA, which is highly welcome and should make the personal pension wrapper even more attractive. It'll be interesting to see how they treat unfunded AFPS though.

[Al R]

Concept of ops then.

Get a second job and pay yourself a huge divi, if you fancy a decent sized family then don't hang about (you've two years), practice telling your kids how the new living wage means they needn't (mustn't!) go to uni, and sell that buy to let. The 40% threshold to £43,000 works out at only about a 1.5% increased benefit, so quietly shelve that secondary duty too.

The increase in personal allowance and proposed Green Paper means it's even more vital to making sure that saving and establishing income in retirement is done with a view to equally splitting it between both partners.

If Osborne wants to make a pension like an ISA, in other words, loading it with tax paid income and then drawing income free of tax, it'll make it interesting for an unfunded scheme like AFPS. Unless the state exempts the likes of AFPS from any changes, it'll mean pay cuts for servicemen and women when (if) the scheme starts in (presumably) 2017/18. Potentially, another one to keep your eye on if it coincides with an option point.

[aw ditor]

2% of GDP on Defence' for the rest of this Parliament, or did I hear that correctly?

[ETOPS]

did I hear that correctly?

Yes - expect P-8 order shortly.

[glad rag]

Was there not also something like "demonstrable benefits" ?? sorry was on the A17 listing on the radio so may have been "distracted"................

[Al R]

These then, the questions just published which revolve around fusing retirement planning and the common or garden type ISA into, presumably, a RISA.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/442160/Strengthening_the_incentive_to_save_consultation__web_.pdf

Question five refers, and I imagine that the Forces Pension Society will be eliciting feedback.

"Should the government consider differential treatment for defined benefit and defined contribution pensions? If so, how should each be treated?"

[Heathrow Harry]

Government to spend 2% of GDP on defence every year, meeting Nato target



Spending on defence to rise in real terms - 0.5% above inflation - every year during the Parliament



New £1.5bn Joint Security Fund for investment in military and intelligence agencies



Recipients of the Victoria Cross and George Cross will see annual pension annuities rise from £2,129 to £10,000, paid for by bank fines. Government to fund memorial to victims of terrorism overseas



The Fund sounds like a pot that everyone will dip into - but mainly the spooks............

[Whenurhappy]

The Fund sounds like a pot that everyone will dip into - but mainly the spooks............

It's not really a new fund; its's the rebadged Global Conflict Prevention Pool/Fund (with a few small bits added).

The Budgets for the security services is, as I've pointed out before, a rounding error of the MOD's vote.

[Jimlad1]

The chancellor committed to spending money from the bank tax to ensure the rennovation and restoration of RAF Uxbridges WW2 bunker which is excellent news.

[Al R]

By keeping salary increases suppressed for a further four years, the pension savings he'll be making should allow him some largesse. :ok:

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

Yes - expect P-8 order shortly


Permission not to hold my breath Sir!

[P6 Driver]

Just curious, but when a VC or GC is awarded, are the pensions put into immediate payment?

[NutLoose]

Jimlad1 The chancellor committed to spending money from the bank tax to ensure the rennovation and restoration of RAF Uxbridges WW2 bunker which is excellent news.


Hmm, I don't suppose the fact it's Boris Johnson's patch has anything to do with it :hmm:

[Davef68]

Hmm, I don't suppose the fact it's Boris Johnson's patch has anything to do with it :hmm:

He made that point (BoJO had lobbied about it apparently) and had a dig at Boris' anti-Heathrow expansion position

[smujsmith]

I notice that public sector pay rises are restricted to 1% for the next four years, the military having already gone through several years of pay restrictions. It's a bloody funny way to show your gratitude to our Armed Forces, who are extremely useful to our country, whilst awarding MPs (who I always believed were also "public servants") a more than 10% pay rise. But then, I suppose when you have no sense of moral decency, it won't matter a jot to you.

Smudge

[MPN11]

Nice news on the VC/GC awards. About bloody time too!

The rest, as an offshore resident probably doesn't affect me, but I have some sympathy for those who have seen the endless changes in Armed Forces pensions since I left in 95.

[Melchett01]

By keeping salary increases suppressed for a further four years, the pension savings he'll be making should allow him some largesse.

Indeed. It will allow him to fund the MPs' potential 27% pay rise over the course of the Parliament.

Everybody knows about the 10% immediate rise. If that doesn't stick in your throat, then the little briefed fact that after this 10% wallet busting rise there will be annual rises tied to annual earnings rather than inflation as most of the masses in the UK will have to contend with - if lucky. Based on OBR forecasts for wage growth out to 2019, that would see pay go from the curren 67K to ~ 84/5K in 5 years. I know they have to take it, they have no choice .... Oh the problems of being a victim eh!

Now having said all that, I actual don't have a problem with MPs earning that for running the country, but the way they are going about it is frankly shocking and a lesson for all the officer training courses in how not to do leadership.

[Bob Viking]

For those of us that are too lazy to do all the reading (and potentially too stupid to understand) may I ask a quick question from the experts regarding tax.

If you were to earn, let's say, about 60k a year and the tax band changes come into effect how much more could one expect to see in their bank account over the course of a year?

BV:bored:

[Lima Juliet]

BV

£60k pa would be better off next April by about £140 pa - don't spend it all at once! :ok:

LJ

[Melchett01]

BV

If you were to earn, let's say, about 60k a year and the tax band changes come into effect how much more could one expect to see in their bank account over the course of a year?

Assuming you're being optimistic and hoping to take home more if the tax hands move in your favour, I'd say still not a lot as CinC Home Command will invariably intercept any windfall before the ink has dried on the statement :p

[Danny42C]

SUMMER BUDGET PRIORITIES
************************


8th Jul 2015,

Jimlad1 (your #12),

"The Chancellor committed to spending money from the Bank Tax to ensure the renovation and restoration of RAF Uxbridge's WW2 bunker, which is excellent news."

* * *

The Telegraph launched its Forgotten Heroes appeal in 2008.

"The target of £5 million for the project was finally reached after major donations from John Caudwell, the mobile phone entrepreneur who sold his Phones4u business in 2005, and Lord Ashcroft".

"The RAF Bomber Command Association has campaigned to be exempted from an £800,000 tax bill. Although this is not possible, the Government announced a one-off capital grant of £796,000 towards the creation of the memorial on top of £204,000 already agreed, taking the total to more than £10 million".

"The heritage minister, John Penrose, said: “The sacrifice made by everyone who served, and the many who lost their lives, with Bomber Command during the war humbles us all".

“Their courage and heroism helped win the war, so it is absolutely right that this should be marked with a permanent memorial".

“These government grants will settle the tax bill that the campaigners will have to pay, so the public’s donations will all go to fund the memorial, rather than to the tax man.”

"Jim Dooley, the chairman of the memorial fund-raising committee, said: 'This is fantastic news'. Everyone involved will be delighted that David Cameron has agreed that the Government should foot the tax bill.”


* * *

16 Jul 2010 (Cameron):

“I’m delighted there will now be a permanent memorial to these heroes and that the Government grant will help to cover the tax bill"


* * *


(By Tim Ross, Political Correspondent, in Stockholm 09 Feb 2012):

"A Telegraph appeal raised more than £10 million from readers towards the estimated £60 million cost of the monument but campaigners behind the project faced a tax bill of almost £800,000".

"The Prime Minister announced that the Government would provide a grant to cover the bill and the memorial is now expected to open in Green Park, near Buckingham Palace, in June".

"The RAF Bomber Command Association has been campaigning for a permanent memorial to the 55,573 crew who lost their lives during the war".

"Although the project has attracted controversy, Germany has agreed to donate a yew tree to be planted in the garden of remembrance next to the memorial".

"Mr Cameron said: “The 55,573 bomber crewmen killed in World War Two made the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of our country".


* * *

"Daily Telegraph", Wednesday 08 July 2015:

"Lifeline for Bomber Command memorial".

"David Cameron has stepped in to help pay for a permanent memorial to the 55,000 members of RAF Bomber Command who died in the Second World War".

* * *


Q: How many casualties were there in the war at the RAF Uxbridge's Bunker ?


Danny42C.

[Easy Street]

Q: How many casualties were there in the war at the RAF Uxbridge's Bunker ?

I'm a proud supporter of the Bomber Command memorial but even I can see that the 11 Group bunker in Uxbridge holds a special appeal. From there was directed the defence of Britain at its most vulnerable. From there Churchill witnessed the narrowness of our margin over the Luftwaffe and conceived his legendary "few" speech. The victory conjured up from that bunker marked the end of the westward expansion of the Third Reich and the survival of Britain. That should be enough reason to preserve it forever. The Bomber Command campaign, whatever your views on its effectiveness or morality, did not play such a direct role in our national survival.


I'm not saying that the Bomber Command memorial shouldn't have received public funding. I am saying that in a contest for limited public funding, securing the commemoration of the Battle of Britain should trump it.

[Bob Viking]

LJ and Melchett.

Thanks for the replies. I didn't expect it to be much but they usually giveth and then taketh away.

130 quid PA or a tenner a month. What will I spend it all on?!

BV

[skua]

Whilst announcing the money for the 11 Gp bunker enabled Osbourne to clap himself on the back (something at which politicos seem to excel), when I visited it 4 years ago it did not look in any worse nick than other MoD real estate!

Surprised there has been no comment on the fact that, in order to reach the NATO 2% of GDP target, Osborne is resorting to some financial chicanery, eg including elements of intel spend, and also UN peace keeping costs (presumably previously in the FO budget).

[The Old Fat One]

Concept of ops then.

Get a second job and pay yourself a huge divi, if you fancy a decent sized family then don't hang about (you've two years), practice telling your kids how the new living wage means they needn't (mustn't!) go to uni, and sell that buy to let. The 40% threshold to £43,000 works out at only about a 1.5% increased benefit, so quietly shelve that secondary duty too.

I knew you and I think alike!

I call that neo-bilkoism (after Sgt Bilko)

BTW, It's pretty much the same thought process that did for the Roman Empire.

[Party Animal]

130 quid PA or a tenner a month. What will I spend it all on?!




Stick another tenner on top and you can have a magnum of Veuve at the Goodwood Festival in September!

Look me up if you need help drinking it. ;)

[Pontius Navigator]

Melchett, indeed, and the same with the pension and avoiding paying the minimum wage. Of course she would argue that she is offsetting the gardener' s, of job man's, and cleaner' s wages against the cook' s.

[Lima Juliet]

Reference the continuing 1% pay rise...

Firstly, we may as well can the AFPRB then and save a bit of money!

Also here is something I thought about last night whilst supping some Sharp's Coaster in my local. Those that have PVR'd/ET'd or left at a retirement point with a pension in payment and have gone FTRS would seem to be doing better than those that stayed in - that is because the pension is going up at CPI and the salary, for those that stay in and what the final pension is based upon, has been going up at a much lesser 1% for our yearly pay rise from Mr Osborne. For example the CPI for the last 4 years has been about 10% in total, whereas the past 4 years has seen just 4% in wage rise - so those that have left and rejoined have seen a proportion of their take home grow by 6% over those in the Regulars. Also, when retired at 55plus those that left early with a AFPS75 pension that stopped growing from 1 Apr 15 may well end up with a smaller final pension than those that jumped FTRS around the same date. However, this only works for those that are approaching 55 as otherwise the AFPS75 pension payment stays flat until age 55 - however, all is not lost, the age 55 index-linking AFPS75 pension will be growing at a faster rate due to the difference in CPI and the wage rise.

Food for thought? Maybe rejecting the extension to 60 as a Regular and 'retiring' to a FTRS post might be better for some (approaching 55) with an AFPS75 pension?

I'm sure some bright spark will correct my boozy musings...:zzz:

LJ :ok:

[Chugalug2]

Easy Street:-
I'm not saying that the Bomber Command memorial shouldn't have received public funding. I am saying that in a contest for limited public funding, securing the commemoration of the Battle of Britain should trump it.You are of course entitled to your opinions and to share them with us, but I find that to be an extraordinary statement to make. Visit London says of the Bomber Command Memorial :-
The Bomber Command Memorial was completed in 2012 and is dedicated to the 55,573 aircrew who died while serving in the RAF with Bomber Command in the Second World War.
The MOD says of the Battle of Britain London Memorial:-
In addition a Battle of Britain Monument was unveiled in 2005 on Victoria Embankment near the RAF Memorial in London in memory of all who took part in the Battle, civilian and military. The names of all the aircrew who were awarded the Battle of Britain clasp are recorded. The MOD says of the Bomber Command London Memorial:-
Sorry, the news article you have requested cannot be found, please try again from our index page.Which is why I quote Visit London. As Danny says, these two Memorials commemorate the people who served and those who sadly died in these battles, rather than the battles themselves.

As to the significance of the battles, that is again a matter of opinion of course. Mine is that the BoB saved us from losing the war in 1940, the Battle of Germany enabled victory in 1945. Goering by contrast declared the BoB a draw. Even he could scarcely say the same of 1945!

[The Old Fat One]

For example the CPI for the last 4 years has been about 10% in total, whereas the past 4 years has seen just 4% in wage rise - so those that have left and rejoined have seen a proportion of their take home grow by 6% over those in the Regulars

Interesting point and one with history. In fairness the numbers are pretty marginal these days and more of academic interest than anything else I would imagine.

However, I saw presentation on the identical situation in seventies, when inflation was running as much as 20% :eek: and yearly military payrises were not a given. Some dude from PMC contrasted a Wg Cdr who left in the early seventies at an option point, with one who stayed in full term. As I recall the one who left earlier ended up on a considerably higher pension even though he served several years less. (PS to avoid confusion, the presentation was about this seventies situation - I saw it in the nineties, I'm old but I'm not that old!)

[Biggus]

TOFO,

AFPS05 had "pension dynamising" as a feature, introduced at the insistence of the Forces Pension Society, to cater for that very scenario.

[Easy Street]

As to the significance of the battles, that is again a matter of opinion of course. Mine is that the BoB saved us from losing the war in 1940


That is precisely why I consider the BoB more worthy of public commemoration than the BC campaign. That bunker in Uxbridge was the place from which the last-ditch defence of our great country was organised!

[Danny42C]

http://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/reply_small.gif (http://www.pprune.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=9040708&noquote=1)
Easy Street (your #25),

I take your point. As it happens, I spent a tour in the early '50s as the Adjutant of an (Auxiliary) Fighter Control Unit, and though not in the Fighter Control Branch myself, of course knew that our main purpose was to train an immediately available reserve of Fighter Controllers, Radar Operators and Fighter Plotters for the ROTOR stations.

In an (ill-fated !) Open Letter to my troops and enquirers, I wrote (of the history of the early days): "These enabled us to use our few precious Spitfires and Hurricanes only when and exactly where they were needed, and not wasted on largely futile Standing Patrols".

Certainly these underground Control stations (wartime precursors of ROTOR, and "holes" in our parlance !), of which Uxbridge was the best known, and the Chain Home radars, were a vital part of the BoB, without which we would certainly have lost the war. But without Bomber Command, we would have been unable to avenge the "Blitz" and batter the Third Reich into submission - or at least to take a major part in doing so. "They have sown the Wind", quoted Harris, "They will reap the Whirlwind" (and they did !)

I would dispute your conclusion that, "in a contest" (with Bomber Command) "for limited public funding, securing the commemoration of the Battle of Britain should trump it".

Without the BoB, there would have been no Bomber Command, it is true. But in the the context of the astronomical sums which the MOD seems to have seen vanish down its "black hole", the cost of the Bomber Memorial would have been trifling. There is a nasty suspicion that the (almost wholly post-war) bitter denigration of Harris and his men played a part here: our ("Politically Correct") modern Politicians wanted to be seen as sympathetic to that widely disseminated calumny.

The 55,573 dead of Bomber Command deserve better of their country.

But as Chugalug says (#32): "As to the significance of the battles, that is again a matter of opinion of course. Mine is that the BoB saved us from losing the war in 1940, the Battle of Germany enabled victory in 1945. Goering declared the BoB a draw. Even he could scarcely say the same of 1945!"

That puts it in a nutshell, IMHO.

Danny42C.

[Chugalug2]

Easy Street:-
That bunker in Uxbridge was the place from which the last-ditch defence of our great country was organised! and worthy of preservation for that, I agree. That though was not your proposition, which was to fund it in preference to the Bomber Command Memorial. There seems to be two objections that come to mind;

1. You are comparing Apples and Pears. The first will commemorate a battle, the second those who died in one. There are two memorials already to the BoB, in London and Capel le Ferne.

2. You fight wars to win, not simply to avoid defeat. The BoB ensured the latter in 1940, but we could have still faced defeat at any time thereafter. Bomber Command ensured that didn't happen by contributing to the victory of 1945.

We seem to have a preference for celebrating those battles that avoid our defeat rather than those that ensure our victory. Trafalgar is quite rightly commemorated every year in the London Square that is its memorial. Waterloo is celebrated every 200 years, and its memorial is a London bridge (or was until it was replaced).

Danny, absolutely agree with you. The modern Royal Air Force would prefer that the WW2 Bomber Offensive had never happened, though presumably it still prefers our victory. I don't think that the one could follow the other.

[Al R]

Danny,

I'm not intending to be patronising, and at the risk of sustaining wrath for linking age with acuity, you sure seem to have retained your marbles. As one of the dwindling witnesses to the proceedings of the time, are you remembering today in any particular way?

If you're not already, you should be on Twitter to share your experiences and memories, I think you'd enjoy it. I know Twitter would.

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

the Battle of Germany enabled victory in 1945



I don't think that the one could follow the other.


How on earth can you justify these statements? What facts suggest that the Combined Bomber Offensive (and I would suggest that the Americans' contribution to it was more valuable, given their focus on German industry) did anything to enable victory? I would agree that bombing shortened the European war (hard to say by how much, but certainly less than a year) but enabling victory? Not a chance. Next you'll be saying that D-Day was essential to defeating Nazi Germany as well...


The 55,573 dead of Bomber Command deserve better of their country


On this we can agree - both those who died and those who survived displayed amazing courage and determination to carry out their orders in the face of terrifying odds. Whether the orders given were sensible or useful is a different matter.

[Easy Street]

For the avoidance of doubt, my position is not intended to make any judgement on morality of the Bomber Command campaign - for the record, I believe it was morally justifiable but do not intend to drag the thread off with a discourse on why so. I would have preferred the memorial to have been constructed at public expense, and clearly the government could have paid for both the BC memorial and the restoration of the 11 Gp bunker. But politics doesn't work like that (again, to avoid thread drift, I'm going to leave that standing as an assertion).

If a choice has to be made, for me the bunker wins. Yes, the Nazis perceived the BofB as a draw, but even if we accept that view, it was damned important not to lose! The record is replete with great battlefield victories of arguable, little or no historical significance; the reason why Trafalgar and Waterloo are (rightly) held up as victories worth commemorating is their profound strategic legacy, establishing as they did a century-long British pre-eminence. For me, the BofB joins this elite pairing because of its profound strategic significance, regardless of whether it can be counted as a tactical victory. As others have pointed out, the bomber campaign, OVERLORD and the NW Europe campaign were all dependent upon Britain avoiding defeat in those critical early stages of the war, and the BofB marked the first significant failure of the thereto-unstoppable Nazi war machine. We still remember Drake's defence against the Spanish Armada for similar reasons.

As a final point, beyond its preservation as a memorial to the BofB, the 11 Gp bunker serves as a superb testament to the ingenuity of our scientists (radar), to the value of bold and innovative military thought (Dowding and Park), and to the social revolution-precipitating role of women in war (WAAF plotters). In other words, it shows how an educated, liberal, enlightened society has significant strengths which can be drawn upon in adversity, despite the misgivings of many. As a relic or monument to visit to remember and think upon military matters, I consider it rivalled in the UK only by HMS Victory.

[Chugalug2]

TotD:-
Whether the orders given were sensible or useful is a different matter. Ah, the voice of received wisdom, a declaration that sounds both instant and profound but is instead the dreary regurgitation of the mutterings of the chattering classes and Hampstead thinkers. Danny might have something more pithy to add, but for myself I find it insulting that those aircrew who served in that long, bloody, and very dangerous campaign are portrayed as merely following orders. They volunteered to a man, admittedly not really understanding the dire odds against survival, but I doubt many would have had second thoughts had they had them explained in detail. This was total war and the only means of taking it to the enemy heartland pre D-Day was (for the UK) by means of Bomber Command. The rest is detail and this is neither the time nor place to count angels on pin-heads.

As to D-Day, not sure where you are going with that. Unlike Harris I don't believe victory was possible solely with the use of Air-Power and thus final victory required boots all the way to Berlin. Now, the great majority of course were worn by the Red Army, and if that is the elephant in your room, point taken.

By victory I meant a victory for us. Without D-Day there would have been no such victory, nor liberation for Europe. If that is your point, I'm sorry, for there we are in violent agreement!

Easy Street, given that this discussion was triggered by Mr Osborne's surprise announcement of a grant for the restoration of the Uxbridge Bunker, and a previous grant for the Bomber Command Memorial announced by Mr Cameron, there would seem to be happily no such conflict as your premise suggested. In which case, each to their own. For myself I think it more becoming that a nation remembers sacrifice rather than battles, lost or won. The scandal of the Bomber Campaign is that no such remembrance was encouraged by successive post war UK governments, and it took a British musician from Australia to force the issue. Shame on them, shame on us, and shame on the Royal Air Force for kowtowing to such a betrayal!

[Danny42C]

Al R,

My dear old Mum used to say: "The names of fools are like their faces - always seen in public places!"

She was right: I would not dream of having anything to do with Facebook, Twitter or any of their derivatives. "Keep a low profile" has always been a good policy.

I can vaguely remember the long summer of 1940, and the miracle of the BoB (Dunkirk had been a defeat - a disastrous rout, in fact - there's no other way of describing it).

As for the BoB, it's worth pouring a glass of Guinness to that. As I said in a Post long ago: "Two hundred years ago, old Admiral Lord St.Vincent declared: "I do not say the French cannot come - I only say they cannot come by sea".

.....To that we'd added: "Or by air !"


Easy Street,

As you say, the Government could easily have financed both memorials from "petty cash".... "But politics doesn't work like that".

Nobody would gainsay that ! :*

Danny42C

[Wensleydale]

Perhaps terminology could be better....a memorial is a memory of the people who were there.....surely the Bunker at Uxbridge is more of a Heritage Site that was used by those people we remember? Memorials are to remember - heritage sites are to educate about the past. Both are valuable in their own right despite the different purpose.

[Danny42C]

Chugalug, (your #41)

".....They volunteered to a man, admittedly not really understanding the dire odds against survival, but I doubt many would have had second thoughts had they had them explained in detail....."

Not quite like that. Unlike today's young men, whose only concept of having a war actually on your doorstep is limited to seeing old war films (most of which were as convincing as a nine-dollar note), plus what they've read, plus what Dad may have told them when they were small, our generation had a war bright in living memory.

Most of our fathers and uncles would have been in the trenches (the guns had fallen silent only 22 years before); we were accustomed to seeing crippled ex-servicemen begging in the street when we were growing up; there were to be maiden aunts in plenty. I've heard that the chances of survival of a young infantry officer in that war were much the same as those of aircrew in Bomber Command in ours. The "Times" headed their daily lists of officer casualties:

"All Second Lieutenants except where otherwise stated".

One of the "spin-offs" of the BoB was the enormous fillip it gave to recruiting in general and the RAF in particular. Three years ago, on the "Gaining an RAF Pilot's Brevet..." Thread (p.114/#2271), I wrote:

"So, with Churchill's words ringing in their ears, just about every red-blooded young man in Britain (and the Empire), with School Certificate and in the age group (17 and a half to 23) flocked to volunteer as RAF aircrew. I was one of them. All wanted to be pilots, of course. There would be many hurdles ahead: it was reckoned that only 2% of all original applicants got to wear the coveted double wing. People were almost down on their knees to get into the RAF, it could afford to be fussy".

Although the bien-pensants will certainly sneer at the word today, it was simple patriotism which drove us, (the Empire volunteers, in most cases, gave up their jobs and paid for their own passages back to the UK, in which many landed penniless), just on the chance of acceptance by the RAF.

For most of us, it was indeed "our finest hour". :ok:

Cheers, Danny.

[Chugalug2]

Thank you Danny. I stand corrected, and as ever truly humbled by what drove an incredible generation to such sacrifice. For whom? For their country, for their loved ones, for their children, and for their children's children, for us!

The lofty dissection of that supreme effort, by those weaned in safety and fed upon PC apologist tracts that were being espoused even as the war raged, I find insufferable. Of course things could have been done better, what couldn't be, but the cost would still have been prodigious.

That is war. It is evil, there is no such thing as a just war, there is just war. Sometimes though it it is the lesser of two evils, and that was certainly the case for this country when faced with the threat of a fascist Europa. It had to be defeated. It was, and we should remember with gratitude and reverence those that gave their lives for that cause. That is why we have a Bomber Command Memorial. Though late, better than never.

[Danny42C]

Chugalug,

No, not corrected ! It is just that later generations (as they must) are looking at those times from a different angle.

Changing the subject, I do not normally wave the flag for the Daily Tel., but Saturday's edition (I'm a leisurely reader) has on P18 a marvellous leader from Charles Moore (the Editor), which I would recommend all to read, and this is followed on P.22 by an article on cosmetic surgery which links in well with a Post I put in about East Grinstead some days ago (P.359/#7178 on "Gaining a RAF Pilot's Brevet...).

Salutations, Danny.

[Heathrow Harry]

"Unlike today's young men, whose only concept of having a war actually on your doorstep is limited to seeing old war films"

my dear old Mum always used to say that the kids in the 70's & 80's wouldn't hold a candle to those of her youth in 1939-45

She had the decency to admit she had been very very wrong when the Falklands conflict broke out...................

[Danny42C]

Heathrow Harry,

I may have given the wrong impression. Indeed I have myself said in a Post a while back: "The Right Stuff was as Right as ever it was - it was merely Different" (or words to that effect).

In this case I was drawing a comparison between our boyhood, (when the war had been "only yesterday", and there was evidence of its effects all around us), and the circumstances of today, when the last world war, 70 years ago, is no more than history - even the Falklands war is now 33 years past.

You'd have to be at least 45 to remember that clearly - what chance have today's youngsters unless they're told ?

Danny.

[Heathrow Harry]

Save £20bn, George Osborne tells Whitehall departments - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33610801)



George Osborne has launched his spending review with a call for £20bn cuts to Whitehall budgets.


Each unprotected department has been asked to come up with savings plans of 25% and 40% of their budget.


The chancellor said departments had also been asked to help meet a target of 150,000 new homes on public sector land by 2020.


The NHS and per-pupil schools budgets will be protected in the review (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447101/a_country_that_lives_within_its_means.pdf), which will be published on 25 November.


Mr Osborne told MPs that "with careful management of public money, we can get more for less".


The Treasury said "large savings" would be required of unprotected departments, which have been asked to model two scenarios: of 25% and 40% cuts to their budgets by 2020.

[Party Animal]

Fortunately, 'defence' is now a protected budget.

[Sandy Parts]

"Fortunately, 'defence' is now a protected budget."
Would love to think so but I read it as:
"Funding to maintain 'real-terms' Defence budget at 2% of GDP"
To my cynical mind this means:
"Humphrey, add all the possible Defence related budgets together (don't forget to include all the Security and Foreign Affairs ones not currently included) - then chop anything over the magical 2% GDP figure"

[Heathrow Harry]

Regretfully AVM Parts is correct - the defence budget is not protected in the same way as the NHS and we've already seen a bunch of odd stuff (such as increased spending on the the Secret Services) being lumped in when previously they came out of the FO budget

[Heathrow Harry]

latest:-


"It also sets out plans to sell off publicly-owned land that is surplus to requirements, including assets owned by the Ministry of Defence.


The Treasury said the MoD, alone, accounted for 1% of all land in the UK, while the state land holdings were worth £300bn.
Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock told the BBC that £1.5bn of land had been disposed of during the last Parliament and that ministers had only "just started getting going".


"It is clear we can release much, much more," he told Radio 4's World at One. "It also contributes to our wider objectives like housebuilding. The two go hand in hand."

[Melchett01]

As Heathrow Harry said

Each unprotected department has been asked to come up with savings plans of 25% and 40% of their budget

Cameron needs to be careful just how far he lets Osborne run with this; they were elected on the basis of sorting the economy out not dismantling the country and selling it off to the lowest bidder. Contracting services out is a double edged sword; I've never been a great fan of contractorisation in the military, but in less than a week MT contractors at my unit have told me "we're contractors not a taxi service for the military, you can't make us do that" (the request was to support operational tasking!) and the Med Centre saying "we're not contracted to support 'fun days'" (run during normal working hours!) when asked if they were providing any support after the decree that a minimum number of first aides were required on duty during the event.

If the Govt contracts a huge swathe of services out and there isn't a concomitant reduction in taxes to compensate for the reduction and the fact that we would have to go to the private sector for service provision there'll be all hell to pay by the small statists. If there is a reduction in services, as is likely given local authorities previous form, cue howls of anger from big statists and Keynesian types. It's a fine line to tread and getting it wrong will cause huge problems.

Contractors aren't everything, sometimes you really do get monkeys when you pay peanuts and this could easily become a false economy if done dogmatically rather than pragmatically.

[Tom Joad]

Wonder how the chancellor's recent target for Whitehall budget savings will impact on MoD, albeit the intention is to increase spending there.?

Tom

[Danny42C]

One last word on the question of which of the two Memorials was more worthy of the taxpayer's support: of course it is really a case of "chacun à son goût".

My contention is that a memorial to the actual heroism itself must always "trump" the memory of a place which formed such a vital part in our 1940 sruggle for survival as a nation. (In the war, it is well said: "Courage is the supreme virtue").

Just think for a minute of those young men in Bomber Command. They took off in the dark or at last light for a 8-10 hour flight over enemy territory (all hand-flown by the pilot), in a cramped, freezing, unheated bomber. At any moment of that long night they might be caught by searchlights, hit by flack, hunted down by a night fighter, or (as is now increasingly suspected) suffer a collision.

They knew the odds against surviving a "tour", and that, if hit and not lucky enough to get out (with only a "hope" of years of captivity), they would probably burn to death. They had had all the prevous day to think about that prospect.

I would say that one such night deseves a medal, wouldn't you? But that wasn't all - a day or two later they they knew they'd have to do it all again. And again and again, say twice a week, until they'd chalked up 30 trips.

Could you do that? Could I do that? I hope so, but was never called upon to do so - I had a much easier war. But they did, and that is what we are commemorating.

Yes, they were just "obeying orders", I suppose !

Danny42C

[Heathrow Harry]

well if osbourne moved every Ministry out of C London he'd have a load of space he could convert into flats.... the minimum in C London is around
£ 1 million a shot so he needs a few but every little helps..............

Whitehall Towers anyone?

only problem is that the area is infested with MP's...................

[Courtney Mil]

Wonder how the chancellor's recent target for Whitehall budget savings will impact on MoD, albeit the intention is to increase spending there.?

A good question indeed, Tom. Is the intention to increase spending or is the intention to appear as if he's going to increase spending there? Or am I being too cynical?

[Melchett01]

Originally posted by Courtney Mil

A good question indeed, Tom. Is the intention to increase spending or is the intention to appear as if he's going to increase spending there? Or am I being too cynical?

A cynic is simply how an optimist describes a realist. If I were a betting man I'd suggest that Defence will be told to reduce it's budget by a billion or so, and once it has done that, we will be allowed to keep the money we've saved. In one master stroke he cuts Defence spending whilst simultaneously appearing to be generous by giving Defence an uplift of a billion or so above its new budget, thereby demonstrating his commitment to national security and maintenance of the 2% GDP target, all the while spending no more than he already does.

If you'd suggested that I might think you were being cynical.

[Frostchamber]

If the economy grows as predicted, HMG will probably need some creative accounting in addition to the .5% real terms increase if it's to keep to the 2% commitment. I realise that hard bitten cynicism is the only safe line on here (and it's generally justified in the light of experience) but in this case I think it's probably true to say that the defence budget is largely protected, even if some of the "increase" needed to achieve 2% over the next 5 years comes from smoke and mirrors. If that makes sense.

But expect also to see a push for efficiencies despite the resource commitment. In the public sector you don't get commercial pressures driving efficiency, it has to be driven out to some degree, otherwise a proportion of any resource increase gets mopped up by efficiency losses.

Oh, and don't forget that even before any extra resources flow through from the recent commitments, there's still an £8bn unallocated pot waiting to be spent. Enough to cover the up front cost of a slack handful of P8s and more besides.

It's always possible that the govt will go overboard on the creative accounting but even so I think there's some justification for just a glimmer of cautious optimism, even on here - and certainly by comparison with what we expected before the budget.

[The Old Fat One]

If the economy grows as predicted

Economic growth alone is not the real issue when it comes to deficit reduction. the elephant in the room has been well known and well trumpeted (pun intended) for several years now...and that is the lack of growth in tax revenue.

Following our global "adjustment", the UK's steady employment performance has relied entirely on such things as

minimum wage jobs
zero hour contracts
and a massive increase of small business startups, most of which will fail in the next two-three years (because that is just an enduring fact).

This type of employment provides very little tax revenue.

Peston wrote a blog about budget reduction recently

Robert Peston - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/robertpeston)

What is significant about his piece (even if you are not a fan) is that it is largely identical to one that Stephanie Flanders wrote five years ago...and of course hers has been largely validated by time.

Expect more smoke a mirrors as the government "revises" the way this stuff is all calculated during the duration of this parliament.

[Al R]

"Financial repression". Low wage growth, low savings rates, illiquid debt (sorry.. 'credit'), increasing inflation.. all of those will simply vapourise the debt (here as well as in the Eurozone/Greece). The cutting of benefits and the selling off of the estate is an ideological sideshow, Westminster fluff to keep the merry-go-round nicely oiled.

I'm of an age where it won't affect me, but when Millennials start retiring and haven't done anything to hedge against the financial devastation that faces them, there'll be hell to pay. We think it's bad now? We demand low tax and 'flexible' working and that's fine. But it means in thirty years, the state simply won't have a viable revenue stream.

[The Old Fat One]

Struggle to disagree with any of the above AL R

Big Ponzi scheme innit

[Madbob]

TOFO as the old story goes.....

1. The Emperor is not wearing any clothes and has been nude for some time.
2. The Emperor is not fat anymore.
3. The Emperor has been taking flesh wounds for a while.
4. In some parts, the Emperor has been cut to the bone, and

I believe his doctor is saying that it's going to be a long road to recovery and he may never find his old clothes again.


MB

[Danny42C]

When they put me out to grass from the RAF, earned an honest crust as a VATman. We said (not entirely in jest) that it would be a good idea to abolish income tax altogether and put the whole lot on VAT.

Cuts out all tax avoidance and fiddles at a stroke; the poor pay the larger part of their income on housing, food and warmth, so zero-rate those, and soak the big-spenders on everything else ! :ok:

D.

[The Old Fat One]

I have a mind to indulge my hobby horse...

Which is about this word..."Austerity".

Quote difficult economic conditions created by government measures to reduce public expenditure Unquote

eg

"the country was subjected to acute economic austerity"

Being a bit of an old timer, I'm struggling to remember a time when we had a governmental antonym of austerity (extravagance??) policy. For sure, we've had a few wasteful, even spendthrift governments, but it's a little bit relative isn't it? I mean I can't remember any government declaring "hey we got wads of wonga - get down here and help yourself. Most of my lifetime, somebody been cutting something, somewhere. Most of us, I would suggest, are far more familiar with austerity than the opposite.

For all that we toss the word around like it was invented in 2010...but I'm guessing even that is two years too late. It was the beginning of October 2008, close to seven years ago, that the Captain Darling decided to shell out 500 Billion (give or take the odd meaningless billion or so) big ones to the UK banks, and I'd stake his mortgage that some senior civil servant was already whispering in his shell like..."Darling, I think we need to cancel the MPA fleet and a few hospitals, because I'm not sure I can balance the cheque book, tell you what...why don't we call it "a necessarily austere reduction in public spending".

Which is all very interesting from a historical point of view (assuming you are a boring economics nerd like me), but here is the rub.

What has the previous 5-7 years of pretty painful austerity achieved in terms of deficit reduction.

errr... it depends

check out the graphs (which are sourced from the Office for Budget Responsibility)

UK debt and deficit: All you need to know - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25944653)

What it seems to depend on is what branch of mathematics or statistics you favor. What it does not seem to depend on is simplistic logic like...how much do we owe? How much is coming in, compared to how much is going out?

Which is just as well...because we borrow more seven years after we started austerity and we owe more seven years after we started austerity.

So after that red wine motivated billet doux, my dramatic conclusion is...

Let's ban the word "austerity" and just see our economic reality for exactly what it is...totally ****ing normal and and no better or worse that it ever has been in the past or will be in the future, moderated by a little bit of superficial and inconsequential boom and bust (didn't someone say that was finished?)

Only by ignoring the mind****, will we be free of the mind****

[Al R]

Old money: Living within your means.
New money: Austerity.

Old money: Debt.
New money: Credit.

[Chugalug2]

TOFO:-
...a little bit of superficial and inconsequential boom and bust (didn't someone say that was finished?)
Well they may well have done, but it is that which dominates economic history and which governments try to cope with rather than being the cause.

What causes it then? We do, driven in turn by our greed and fear, the most basic of human reactions to a seemingly confusing world. Or so said Robert Beckman in his book, "The Downwave, Surviving the Second Great Depression".

He famously predicted it, but timed it far too early, getting his ardent followers out of equities and property and into gilts, while the rest of us made yet more money. So they got back into the game, only to then lose their shirts with the rest of us. The lesson? "Are you feeling lucky punk? Well, are you?"

[The Old Fat One]

TBC, I'm not suggesting that the material presence of boom and bust is questionable - I'm suggesting that it is meaningless and irrelevant to our lives.

As an economics professor at St Andrews told me in the mid nineties - "did joe public give a sh1t about any of this macro economics cr@p before breakfast TV and its business slot went on the air".

[Heathrow Harry]

no they didn't but it the economics still put thousands out of work

just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it won't affect your life

[Chugalug2]

I think that the real world is even encroaching on the lives of University economics professors, though those in Scotland may be more equal than others perhaps. That is why I found Beckman's book so compelling, he is always relating the cycle (for that is what it is, as old as human society) to "Joe Public".

His graph of the price of Wheat in England 1259-1975 (the book was published in 1983) shows the spikes that tripled/quadrupled the price of this most basic and most essential commodity at frequent times throughout that period. I think that Joe Public would have been very aware at those times!

On a lighter note he also plots the cycle of fashion over the booms and busts 1800-1980, as what he terms the Hemline Indicator. Ladies' apparel becomes more revealing, more daring, in the upwaves with corresponding covering up again in the downwaves.

If that isn't a convincing enough indicator of one's place in the cycle, he commends wars as sound economic pointers. Upwave wars are marked by much jingoism as the troops depart, with military bands playing and much flag waving to see them off. Attitudes quickly change though, and when the boys (and girls) come home there is much soul searching and demands to know just how such a tragedy ever occurred.

In contrast, downwave wars are resisted until they become inevitable, when a grim determination to see it through culminates in relief when it is finally over. In that regard he says WW1 was upwave, WW2 was downwave.

I think that his reasoning for the cycle is the average active lifespan of human beings, such that those who experienced the heady optimism of the last upwave only to have their hopes and wealth dashed in the ensuing downwave, are too old to influence the next generation from taking the very same course again. Of course this active lifespan has extended greatly over the years, and what was perhaps an average 50 years has in turn become 60 and even 70 years. The weasel word is of course average, hence the difficulty/impossibility of any accurate prediction. That was Beckman's Achilles heel.

Go figure, as they say. If anyone is interested, the ISBN is 0 903852 38 1.

[Danny42C]

Chugalug,

Your: "too old to influence the next generation from taking the very same course again".

Alas, 'tis true (they all think we're gaga !). :(

The same truth is embodied in the old aphorism: "The trouble with the human race is that it doesn't read the Minutes of the Last Meeting !"

Danny.

[Chugalug2]

Danny, I fear that you undermine the very theory that I have espoused, for I guarantee that No One thinks you gaga in this forum!

I, on the other hand have been advised hereabouts to, "Shuffle off in your carpet slippers Granddad, and go suck on your pipe". Keep on proving me and the rest of the world wrong, Danny, and we might all learn to respect our elders and revolutionise the economic model simultaneously.

I've just remembered that we've been round this buoy before, and in doing so learned about "Winchester Bushels" (the units that Beckman's Wheat Price graph used) in that best of all threads, the Gaining RAF Pilots Brevet in WW2 one (with all due respect and apologies to the OP of this one).

[Danny42C]

Chugalug (your #73),

Glad to know "that No One thinks you gaga in this forum!" (Give it time !)

Puffed a pipe myself from wartime to handing in my F 1250 in '72. When faced with an awkward question or problem, you could always win time for the answer by taking a minute to fill, tamp down and light said pipe before replying. In that way you could get a totally undeserved reputation for Wisdom and Considered Judgment. (And it is impossible to smoke a pipe and panic at the same time).

As for "....to respect our elders and revolutionise the economic model....", the youngsters of today (present company excepted, of course) would do well to heed the sound financial advice of Mr. Micawber........ ('oo's this Micawber geezer ?)

Bushels (and Pecks). Weren't you supposed not to Hide your Light under one, or something ?

Danny.