Althoughyou describe London as a region of the UK, perhaps you might do better to consider it as ‘the capital of the World’. Then, consider the impact of globalisation on inequality…

Meanwhile, who would you suggest runs Crossrail?

a Fair Pay Mark

Why would a company conceivably want to adverise publicly that it pays its executives less than the going rate? Talented people would go elsewhere.

Twenty companies received over £9bn of public contracts from the transport, economic development, police and fire service services overseen by the Mayor in the past three years. He could use this leverage to press them to sign up.

Ah, I see. You want them to be blackmailed into it.

Very liberal.

“Twenty companies received over £9bn of public contracts from the transport, economic development, police and fire service services overseen by the Mayor in the past three years.

He could use this leverage to press them to sign up.”

£3 billion a year eh? Or less than 1% of London’s GDP?
Some leverage he’s got there….

Why would a company conceivably want to adverise publicly that it pays its executives less than the going rate?

Why would a talented teacher want to stay in her/his job if their pension is being cut? Wouldn’t they go elsewhere? But you’re ok with cutting that, right?

@ sunny

Because their pensions would still be far better than those in the private sector?

I do particularly remember one of the guardian’s articles, when they used the example of a drama teacher with 7 years experience, working in a south london suburb on 32k pa. Bit of a fail there, given she was on considerably more than the median wage.

Honestly I would rather Boris just sat behind a desk and didn’t touch his computer, didn’t answer the phone and basically did as close to nothing as humanly possible until London elects a grown up to run the city. I wouldn’t leave the man in charge of a house plant. The best we can hope for from Boris is inertia, because if he does actually attempt to do anything it’s going to be an expensive disaster.

Once Boris is gone hopefully the lesson of not electing a mentally subnormal clown to a position of authority will have been learned. And it’s only cost us the lives of some cyclists and the biggest riots in living memory.

“Meanwhile, who would you suggest runs Crossrail?”

i will offer to do the job. I am sure I probably know more about transport than whoever gets the job, and I am perfectly capable of setting subordinates tasks to complete and managing their performance in completing them.

I will probably cost a lot less than the banker who will inevitably get the job.

@ 2

“Ah, I see. You want them to be blackmailed into it.”

Refusing to deal with someone is not blackmail.

@ 4 Sunny

Why would a talented teacher want to stay in her/his job if their pension is being cut? Wouldn’t they go elsewhere?

Pensions are far, far less generous in the private sector Sunny. Has no-one told you that?

Besides, an experienced classroom teacher is only being asked to increase her pension contributions by £340 per annum. Hardly worth changing your job over.

People commenting on the above article seem to know quite a lot about the pensions earned by people working in professions other than their own.
Perhaps they can tell me what annual pension an individual who is a State Registered Nurse, now working in an administrative role (but after 40 years service, still employed in the NHS) can expect on retirement.
I am not emplyed in the NHS or any other publicly funded body, nor have ever been.

@ 10 barrie j

Perhaps they can tell me what annual pension an individual who is a State Registered Nurse, now working in an administrative role (but after 40 years service, still employed in the NHS) can expect on retirement

For some NHS staff there is also a provision for taking a bigger lump sum, with corresponding reduction in annual pension.

Sunny, I’m a teacher and I stay I the job because the pay is very good in my opinion, the holidays are great, job security is excellent, I can’t really be messed about as we are well unionised, and day-to-day I don’t really have a boss. The only pain is OFSTED, the over analysis of what ‘good teaching’ is and the routine snake oil crap we get from every new initiative. If my pension gets altered, it’s not going to make me leave. After all, I’d hate to work in the private sector and have no job security, a pisspoor pension, fewer holidays and half-educated muppets with chips on their shoulders and poor grammar telling me what to do all day.

There were almost 100 people paid more than £150,000 in the Greater London Authority group last year, which was roughly ten times the London Living Wage.

The Mayor supported the idea of introducing a fair pay ratio. But he told me that he won’t implement it where he feels the need to compete with the private sector.

As if the tools in the public sector are competing with the private sector. This is a good idea. Too many civil servants are over paid. The rest is stupid. The idea we need some quango (full of highly paid leftists needless to say) to oversee pay is worse than stupid.

In light of the autumn disturbances, the evidence that more equal societies are generally happier and healthier with less violent crime cannot be met with inaction.

There is no such evidence.

@1 – A demolition engineer.

@2 – You want the public sector to do it across the board. Can’t have skilled people in public service, after all.

@5 – No, they are not “better”. When you’re facing a pension which will never recover what you pay in, even, keeping cash under the bed is a better idea. That’s the reality for many of the revised pensions, for people working in high-stress jobs which materially impact their lifespan.

@13 – Of course there is, denial is not a replacement for evidence outside your NPD.