On Monday, June 19, 2000 11:00 AM, Peter van Heusden
[SMTP:pvh at egenetics.com] wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jun 2000 bruce.rob at mail.btinternet.com wrote:
>
> > I am in the happy position of having been able to take early
> > retirement from academe aged 41 (the downside being that I have a
> > chronic illness. I don't have any trouble filling my time (perhaps
> > political activism and LBO-list should be recommended for all
> > retirees!).
> >
> > the Blair government has recently talked about RAISING the retiremnt
> > age to 70 and applying coercive measures to keep 60-70 year olds in
> > the job market. I can't think of any good economic reason for this
> > even from a capitalist viewpoint, except perhaps cuttoing the social
> > security budget If people that age want to work, fine. They shpu;d not
> > be discriminated against, but forcing them to at that age...
>
> Has he gone totally insane? I thought Blair was trying to appeal to the
> older, generally more conservative, voter (I assume that is, in part,
> what that rubbish about "sacred monuments" after May Day was about).
They already made one major error in only upping the state pension by 75p a week in the last budget in line with low inflation. This cost them a lot of votes in the last local elections. Large sections of the labour movement have been pushing for the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings which was removed by the Tories in the 80s, but Brown has been resisting this.
In a moment of unconscious irony, there have been rumours that Blair is preparing to allow the Labour Party Conference to pass various resolutions against government policy this year (1st time since he became leader in 94). This is supposed to demonstrate that they're not really control freaks after all!!
Bruce Robinson
>
> Maybe the Blairites are cooking up their version of the US Social
Security
> 'crisis' hysteria.
>
> Maybe top Blairites are secretely being paid by William Hague.... :)
>
> Peter
> --
> Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics
> "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that
man
> shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the
chain
> and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844