100 business creeps: Labour threatens our cosy fat cat life

"Today big Tory Business lines up to attack ED Miliband and Labour by sending a letter to a right wing paper saying it would be a disaster if Labour are elected.... Look carefully at these companies and individuals.

They comprise of Corporate Tax Dodgers, Minimum Wage Payers, Anti-Union, Tory Party Donors, Multi Millionaire Chair's of Companies who think Tax Avoidance is their right.

They are worried that their cosy fat cat life will be challenged, that's why they are backing the Tories with this predictable "Open Letter Nonsense "If it wasn't April Fools Day I would have said it was a sick joke....."

Well said Mr Rayner, I couldn't put it better myself.

Myners to sort out City Fat Cats?

I found the appointment of Paul Myners to become Minister for the City and to serve as an advisor on the New Economic Council particularly interesting. Tom P says “great news I reckon – he knows what he’s talking about and isn’t afraid to be radical”

The Times calls the Chair of the Guardian Media Group, Land Securities, Chair of the Low Pay commission and ex-Chair of Marks and Spencer’s a “respected figure in the City”. While The Telegraph has called him “controversial” which I think is nearer to the mark.

Many on the left will be most upset that he was a director of a hedge fund that made money out of the collapse of Bradford & Bingley. He also gave £12,700 to Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign.

However, there is more to him for those who want meaningful change in our financial systems that may at first appear. He is not at all easy to pigeon hole.

I first came across Paul many years ago when he was a senior fund manager with Gartmore investments. I was a relatively new trade union rep on my pension fund investment committee. The fund had decided to sack Gartmore for poor short term performance. Paul came to a meeting and gave a typically impassioned presentation to our committee about why we should not dismiss Gartmore due to its recent performance and that things will improve in the long term. The Chair of our investment committee however, had already decided Gartmore had to go...... and I went along with things. I don’t think that the replacement fund manager did that much better and has since been replaced anyway, but such is life. It did seem strange to me at the time (and since) that long term investors (pension funds) paid so much attention to short term performance.

I’ve heard Paul speak at a number of events since and he has always shown an edge as a City outsider with an appetite for controversy. Of course he is probably best well known for the Myners report on investment principals.

While I loved his appearance on BBC Question time last year where he said “The arrogant, superior young toffs who lead the Conservative Party, neither of whom have done a serious day's work in their life... David Cameron was executive at Carlton Television which lost over a billion pounds while he was there. I take no lectures from that young man about business competence. ...Nor can we blame Gordon Brown for the sub-prime disaster in the United States of America or the recklessness of bankers.”

At the RSA early this year I heard Paul declare that he spoke “ as a trade unionist” and “someone who wouldn’t join the Labour Party because it is not sufficiently left wing for my taste” but who urged that stamp duty on shares ought to be increased to 5% in order to encourage long term ownership (not short term trading). I assume he is now a member of the Party.

He also advised the unions to concentrate their campaigning on the disparity in Executive pay “the self appointed managerial elite are raping the resources of companies”. So called “independent” external advisers on executive pay are called “Ratchet, Ratchet and Ratchet”. His distaste was clear.

Today we learnt that the former head of failed Bank Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, (see picture above right) “earned” $300 million in the last 8 years.

So once the present crisis is over (which eventually it will be) shall the new City Minister take steps to tackle the abuse of executive pay and short termism – and help prevent the next “Great crisis”? We’re wait and see, but I feel that if anyone can have a go .....

Don't let Employers get away with Blaming Brown for Pension Cuts

Totally agree with this press release from Brendan Barber. Clearly, the Tory attack dogs are on the prowl. I agree that "Fat Cats" are more to blame than Brown. Check out top pensions blog (the only one?) Capital and Labour for more common sense about this and other issues.

"Don't let employers get away with blaming Brown for pension cuts TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has hit out at those blaming changes in the way dividends are taxed introduced in Gordon Brown's first budget for the decline in occupational pensions.

Speaking to union officials at a meeting in Congress House, he said: 'Neither employers nor opposition politicians should be allowed to get away with blaming Gordon Brown for cuts in occupational pension schemes. When the tax rules were changed, pension funds were generally in surplus. Many companies had got used to long contributions holidays, and with typical UK short-termism had no plans for restarting contributions. Many companies used pension surpluses to make people redundant through early retirement. 'But when reality returned and employers started facing bills for their pension schemes once again, the retreat from quality schemes began.

Stock market pressures and longer life expectancies have caused far more difficulties than the tax change, which it should not be forgotten, was meant to encourage more long-term thinking in Britain's boardrooms and boost investment. 'But the bottom line is this. Many employers thought they could get away with cutting the pension of their staff, usually while gold plating those in the boardroom. And unsurprisingly they looked for someone else to shoulder the blame, and chose the Chancellor as their fall guy.

Ministers will need to brace themselves as employers who cut schemes in the next few years will inevitably blame the new pension settlement rather than own up to being mean. 'It is not that we are uncritical of the Chancellor. Unions have long called for state pensions to be linked to earnings, and although that principle has now been conceded we still want it to take place before 2012. But on the closure of occupational pensions the guilty men and women are not to be found in the Treasury.'