HOW MUCH ?!?!
Watched Question time after the debate, and Janet Street Porter knocked out some stats that she said she'd pulled from Radio 4 on the "true size of the deficit".
iplayer link (starts at about 51.00, gets interesting at 54.00 ( Read more... )
iplayer link (starts at about 51.00, gets interesting at 54.00 ( Read more... )
As I understand it, if we stop increasing the size of the debt and other liabilities today, and pay those things off at the predicted rate, then the total cost of this will be about £90k per household - the 'per household' is an arbitary figure, as it covers everything from people living alone to families with 18 kids.
This takes into account the full deficit - and takes into account interest payments to service that deficit over the period too. It's easier to account for debt - you know how much it is and how much it will cost to pay back; for example, we're paying about £40bn a year to service the debt now - given this debt is likely to rise (remember the most *any* party has promised to do is halve the deficit, never mind reduce the debt), then interest payments will rise over time too.
Pensions are harder - people are living longer, and public sector payments are often linked to salary in some way. As such, if salaries rise, if people live longer etc...you have to make wider guesstimates of how much this liability is going cost to service. 45k for this is almost a certainly a wild guess, but taking the above into account it doesn't seem unlikely.
One decision that whoever wins this time round will be presnted with will be the option to say to the public sector "Screw your contracts, you're getting so much and no more." Chances are, the civil unrest and legal challegnes which would follow will work out cheaper than actually paying the pensions.
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