BRITISH PENSIONS THE WORST IN EUROPE: AND MOST WON'T QUALIFY FOR ALL THE RISE COMING UP IN 2016

The British state pension at a maximum £110.15 a week is the most miserable in Europe. Compared to average income, even Hungary and Slovenia better the pension benefits British pensioners receive, according to a new OECD report.

British workers on average earnings typically get a state pension worth 32.6% of their working wage. Italian workers, in contrast, can expect 70% of their working salary from the Italian government when they retire. In the developed world, only Mexicans receive less proportionately from the State pension than British workers.

The average European State pension is worth 40.6% of average earnings. If you want to retire comfortably on State coffers compared to those in work, one of the best countries is Austria, at 76.6% - or the Netherlands, even better, at 90.7%. Many Europeans also retire earlier than their British counterparts.

What is a more realistic level of state pension income? The British state pension should be set at £178 a week if it is to be a proper "living State pension", the National Pensioners' Convention claim. Even in the independent states of Guernsey and Jersey, the pensions are far more generous.

There are plans to introduce a flat rate UK pension of around £144 come 2016, worth just under £7,500 a year, just over half the poverty line of around £14,000, though you will need to have worked up 35 years worth of National Insurance contributions to qualify rather than the current 30 (a move the Government has been quiet on, eh Steve Webb!!!).

If you want to have the longest retirement, head for France. The average French male pensioner will live 22.6 years (27.4 for women) on average after leaving work. The average British male kicks the bucket almost five years earlier.

Ah, La Belle Vie? 

Non Merci. Mieux Ensemble. (Mon cul.)

*********

How much did they say the set up costs of Scotland was going to be?

We can't even afford the "t" in Scotland

PREPARE TO MEET THINE END

The UK government announced a  little while ago that people will no longer be obliged to buy an annuity with the money they get from their pension funds.

This presumably means that they can blow the lot on a Porsche, a round-the-world cruise, or a regular good time with Fifi le Malmal (2nd floor left, knock twice).

The downside of that, of course is that when it's done, it's done... and you wouldn't want to have to exist on a British state pension, given that it is the lowest in the developed world after Mexico.

So the pensions minister, in a desperate bid to keep down with the rest of the Work and Pension low life in the Tory government, has decided to tell you when you can expect to die.

Yes, when you retire you will get your pension book, your bus pass and details of when you can expect to quit this life, Steve Webb, who used to be a Liberal, bless him, has announced.

So, although you will get a more accurate forecast on your retirement date, when Mystic Steve pops round to see you with his crystal balls, Munguin has thoughtfully provided you will a rough idea of when you can expect to pop your clogs, so that you can plan not to be a burden on Gidiot Osborne. 

As you can see people in Scotland don't do too terribly well out of this, but the good news is that they can spend all their money faster than those poor people in the South of England who are going to have to make the niggardly amount last longer.

Our worry is that people in Northern Ireland must be expected to die on their 65th birthday... In which case Munguin's advice to them is spend it all on your credit card and take out massive loans the year before you are due to retire, and leave someone else to sort it out.

I was wondering, If Mystic Steve gets it wrong, and you last another few weeks... will you be able to claim social security?

Joking aside... Have you ever heard of anything so crass?

SNAPS ON SUNDAY

WHAT A GRIM THOUGHT

BLESS HIM... MR BLAIR

BEST TO STAY QUIET IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING

IT'S NOT ABOUT PARTIES UNTIL THE REFERENDUM'S OVER

HARD ONE RIGHT ENOUGH... NO WAIT, IT'S NOT

AREN'T WE DOING WELL WITH THE UK? WELL, THEY ARE OECD FIGURES, NOT  THE SNP'S

ERM WHERE, GIDIOT? 

YEAH WHATEVER, NICK... OH LOOK THERE'S A PIG JUST FLOWN OVER YOUR LEFT SHOULDER...

BETTER TOGETHER?...DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH

DIDN'T DO THEM MUCH HARM

ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF. ALL THAT MONEY WASTED WHEN IT IS SO BADLY
NEEDED ELSEWHERE, TO MAKE POSH BOYS LOOK IMPORTANT

WHEN YOU HEAR THEIR POLICIES OR THE STANDARD OF DEBATE, IT'S NOT THAT STARTLING TO DISCOVER THAT SO MUCH SUBSIDISED DRINK IS AVAILABLE TO THEM IN THEIR WORKPLACE

THAT'S A HELL OF A LOT OF HOUSEHOLDS TO BE POOR GIVEN WHAT A RICH COUNTRY WE ARE
A BIT LIKE AN AFRICAN DICTATORSHIP REALLY. THE RULING CLASSES LIVE IN SPLENDOUR AND THE POOR GRUB AROUND IN THE EARTH FOR SOMETHING TO EAT. OH WELL, THAT USUALLY ENDS IN A COUP D'ETAT

AND THE WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT WILL HELP YOU FUND THEM
ANOTHER GIDIOTIC IDEA

WHO COULDN'T MANAGE ON THEIR OWN?

DOES SCOTLAND EXIST, OR IS IT ALL A DREAM?

The Daily Telegraph at its English-centric best!

BRITISH schoolchildren, it says, have slipped down the OECD tables, coming 28th for Maths along with a many other impossibly bad figures.

It goes on to blame Labour for the fall in standards since 2000 and to complain about how much GCSEs have been dumbed down.

Strangely there is neither mention of the blame being on the SNP government nor any mention of standard grades.

What on earth are they talking about?

Ahhh, “chink”, a light has just gone on....

I wonder if the Daily Telegraph in its infinite wisdom has any idea that there is a country to the north of England, called Scotland (you know, the place they sell the so-called “Scottish Edition” of the paper). I wonder if they understand that that country (to its continued determent) is a part of Britain. And that that country hasn’t had a Labour government in charge of its education since 2007. And that that country does not set GCSEs nor has it ever done so.

As an afterthought. I was driving home listening to the BBC (big mistake, I know) and they tell me that the Justice Minister has announced a whole raft of new policies. But strangely his name is no longer Swinney (late correction, see below...MacAskill); they've given the job to someone called Clarke. Odd that!

Pics (1) OECD: The world’s most developed countries... or so THEY say. Some might think otherwise. (2) What Tory Cabinet minister does a pair of scruffy brown (Hush Puppies?) represent? (3) Kenny MacAskill getting a few minutes shuteye. (Eck works them hard)

JIM MURPHY HA HA HA.... ICELANDERS THE MOST CONTENTED PEOPLE IN THE OECD

The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) an international organisation of those developed countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and a free market economy has published a list of countries whose populations are content with their way of life. The top 12 are illustrated to the left <== (click on pic for larger image).

Now I don’t know how this organisation gathers its information, but I imagine that it is in as respected a statistical form as would be expected from a world body and no more or less so that the well known polling companies in the UK. (The ones that predicted a hung parliament with a Liberal/Conservative coalition.) The figures relate to 2009.

So, in view of that, I was interested in three things about the figures... and I thought that maybe Jim Murphy might be interested in them too. As a supposed socialist, after all, he should be interested in ordinary people’s satisfaction with life, rather than the state of the nasty Tory markets (snigger):

• His beloved UNITED Kingdom, with its supposedly wise and prudent government, steering us through the economic downturn with Mr Prudence Brown at the helm, does not appear on this list, suggesting that after 13 years of benign Labour rule, the people are not as content as he would have had us believe;

• Ireland appears as number 7 on the list. Despite Mr Murphy insulting Ireland’s economy and by association its government, the people of Ireland are 7th most content of all the OECD countries;

• The country at the top of the list is Iceland. Mr Murphy fair got ladled into Iceland; the failure of it, the basket case nature of it, backward looking and so on... and his boss Dr Brown, perhaps spoiling for a war that he might just win, used anti terrorist laws against this country, because an Icelandic bank’s English subsidiary, registered in London and regulated (or not as the case may be) by the FSA, went broke.... Well anyway, its people, despite the financial meltdown.. and an errant volcano or two, or three.... are the happiest in the OECD.

After Liam Muppet Byrne giving the Liberal-Conservative government an excuse for tax rises by admitting that he had left them not a penny piece in the Treasury, today it is the turn of Jim Spud Murphy to eat crow.