After the vacillations of recent days, the government could do with a show of
hardheadedness — and Danny Alexander is delivering just that today. He is announcing the government’s plans for public sector pension reform later, and they’re exactly the sort of plans that will set the union bosses frothing: an
increase in the public sector retirement age to 66, an increase in contributions, that sort of thing. But the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is unapolgetic. In an article for the Telegraph, he effectively says that this is a take-it-or-leave-it
offer for the public sector. “It may be that those who oppose change think they can force the Government to change its mind,” he writes, with his pen pointed accusingly at the unions
planning strikes for next month. “This is a colossal mistake.”
Part of Alexander’s resolve is down to the details of the government’s plans: they have made provisions to exempt the poorest public sector workers — as well as those working in the army, police or fire service — from some of the new measures.
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