The average hospital consultant retiring today will enjoy a pension of £48,000 a year and a lump sum of over £140,000.
Among public-sector pensions being paid out, doctors account for two-thirds of the top 1% of pay outs.
These are not the words of the Boy Roberts, I do not make this stuff up. Rather this is lifted straight from that paragon of rectitude the BBC website. It's gospel guv, good as.
So what are we to make of today's news that doctors will next month be taking industrial action over the changes to their pensions? This: if you want to live in a fantasy land where you can be financially rewarded twice for the same estimable job, once while doing it and the other while resting afterwards, then try Greece or perhaps Cuba - oh wait, they're both bankrupt. I'm sorry to sound so immoderate about this but really lads we're teetering on the brink here. The entire European credit binge experiment is about to be chewed up and spat out by a wave of Asian endeavour. Wanting something for nothing is immoral. End of. Sad conclusion: we in the West are utterly fucked and the emerging world laughs at us as we blithely pretend the old certainties still pertain. Francis Fukuyama posited The End of History? (the question mark is important and wilfully overlooked by his more voluble critics) but the sad truth is we've already blown it. The peace dividend has long since been invested in a Ponzi scheme whose collapse has elicited the tired and sinful policy of printing more bad money to chase that already wasted. A policy, let us be clear, which unashamedly taxes thrift to subsidise ignorant greedy borrowing.
Cameron lookalike does arrogant posh boy come hither look |
Feel better now Dave? Much, thank you Matron. Looking forward to the Jubilee weekend when I can at least thank my god that I am spared the blandishments of President Cameron. Vive la difference and freedom for Tooting.