Not sure it was only Labour's fault to be honest. .
No I am sorry but history and fact disprove this theory.
In 1997 the Pension funds were in such good health that thye were in surplus, to the extent that many Companies were reducing the amount of money they were paying in to the fund.
This fact like so many associated with pensions has been twisted by Labour and their followers as some sort of cynical capitalist theft. It was nothing of the sort.
HM Treasury has for decades put an upper limit on how much can be invested in a person's pension and had the pension funds continued in surplus they would have been in breach of Law.
In a hotel just before the GE, Brown, Ed Balls, Charlie Whelan, Geoffrey Robinson, and a number of other of that cynical group met and decided that they would take this surplus, they also decided to impose an iniquitous tax on pension funds.
The nett result of this has been threefold, firstly it has taken tens of £billions out of the pension funds, it has caused the cost of funding them to become so great that employers have either stopped the final salary scheme or in some cases closed them down. Secondly it meant that the resultant loss of revenue would have to be met by increases in contributions from either members or employers, or both. Remember however that the HM Treasury rules place a maximum on how much an employee may pay into a pension fund. Thirdly it not only reduced the amount of pension that could be paid, but it also meant that many funds would ultimately run out of money and become bankrupt.
As one would expect, these issues affected those on lowest earnings most, those who in true sheep-like fashion continue to support Labour :roll:
The need to finance the increasing gap in pension funds means that about a quarter of Council Tax now goes to prop up pension funds for Council workers. That is one reason why Council Tax has shot up so much since 1997.
The need for Councils to make as much money as possible was the reason that so many of them (
as recommended by Brown and his Treasury Ministers) invested their money in foreign banks, particularly the Icelandic banks, and were then dealt a hammer blow by the Icelandic banking crisis.
Four internal Civil Service reports which predicted exactly what has happened were ignored by Brown and buried in the files until Labour were forced to make them public in 2003, about which time the true extent of our economic woes were being realised.
Labour KNEW that in actual fact pension funds were going to go into a crisis from the early part of the 21st Century. This had been known and discussed in the mid 1990s when the Conservative Government introduced changes to pension arrangements, and attempted set up a cross-party group to work out how to deal with the anticipated crisis - due to an ageing population and a decreasing working population, thus bringing about a reduction in pension income. Cynically Labour elected NOT to work in this manner but stood on the sidelines gainsaying any and every proposed change and using these for cynical short term Political purposes by issuing disingenuous statements and factually incorrect propaganda.
The only groups who have benefited from the pensions crisis are the Banks and the Insurance Companies, all of whom were being courted by Brown and his cabal, and who have since looked after those who gave them so much.
The greatest loser of course as always has been the normal working man who typically votes Labour, but for the rest of you young people, YOU will be feeling the pain of this right to your dying day as it will take generations to even get us back to where we were even were this possible.
