FOR any of the millions of people coming to terms with unemployment there can have been few more galling sights this week than the investiture of the new Speaker of the House of Commons.
The charade of Speaker-elect John Bercow feigning resistance as he was dragged to his new seat of office is bordering on insulting to any of the 2.26 million now without jobs. The idea that he would not want a job giving him a £2 million pension, eve
n if he resigns after a day, is preposterous. Bercow will succeed Fred the Shred as the nation's pantomime villain if he persists in refusing to surrender what is probably the best perk in politics.
Bercow is only in the job because the public demanded a new broom be swept through a parliament smeared by charges of lining its pockets. Yet he will have built up pension at a faster rate than Goodwin if he is kicked out of the post in under a year, as many expect.
The Speaker of the House is one of three "Great Offices of State" that come with a platinum-plated pension of half of salary for life, regardless how long they serve. The other two posts entitled to this mother of perks are that of Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor. Gordon Brown and Jack Straw have both pledged not to accept theirs. But Bercow appears intent on riding out calls for him to give up the £39,287 a year inflation-proofed pension he will trouser even if he does get turfed out of office if the Tories win the next election.
When Goodwin first walked off with his £16m pension, deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman said it would not be allowed to stand. Such is the fear of the power the Speaker's office holds that we are yet to hear any MPs joining calls for Bercow to do the decent thing.
In his acceptance speech Bercow said he believed the majority of MPs to be honest, decent people who had come into politics not to feather their nests, but to serve their constituents. Yet parliament is in desperate need of a clean-up. And let's not forget, this is our money Bercow is pocketing. He should not be allowed to do so.
Real world pensionsMEANWHILE, back in the real world, workers are bracing themselves for yet more pension cuts. Just 4 per cent of companies say they are not planning to change the pension scheme they offer, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
For the few remaining final salary schemes in the private sector, this means even existing members could see their pensions frozen – 42 per cent of employers are planning such a step, and a further 32 per cent haven't made up their mind whether to do so yet.
Some employers who have replaced final salary pensions with riskier money purchase schemes are even planning to cut their contributions into them.
This continued erosion of private sector pensions will inevitably lead to more calls for reform of public sector pensions. Recent reports have put the cost of public sector pensions at around £1 trillion. Yes, there are some high earners in the public sector walking off with huge retirement packages, as there are in private companies. But let's not forget that many of these public servants are on low salaries and the average pension they get is less than £7,000 a year.
Debt is corrosive THE supposed "green shoots" of recovery are leading us back into the old habits of spending money we haven't got. After six months of hard saving in the second half of 2008, this year's economic optimism has seen us revert to type and start borrowing more than we save.
The credit crunch made us curb our spending and start repaying our debts. In the past six months of last year, for every £1 we saved we repaid £1.76 of debt, according to figures from advice website unbiased.co.uk. That is in contrast to the first three months of this year where we borrowed 19p for every pound saved.
These figures, which compare saving and borrowing, are doubtless affected by the fact that savings rates are so dismally low.
But they also reflect a confidence born of the belief that the worst of the recession is now behind us. In pure economic terms this may be true, but unemployment is expected to get worse and many of us face pay freezes or even cuts.
It is great that consumer optimism is returning, but that does not mean we should revert to the bad old ways. Debt is corrosive to your finances and clearing it should remain a priority.
John Greenwood is editor of Corporate Adviser