That's a 10% paycut each then, as I'm public sector if not civil service. Let's start as we mean to go on - forget that takeaway, it's beans on toast for supper and that's every night. And I'll have to downsize from Bushells to Diamond White.

I think that you're forgetting that public sector pensions are an evil that is draining the pure essence out of our society.

If you're feeling too calm at any point, it's worth looking at the BBC 'Have your say' section on what people wanted to see in the budget. There's one in the first twenty or so that talks about cutting all public sector wages, getting rid of 75% of the public sector workers, killing off the pensions and denying any entitlement to any kind of benefit to (former) public sector workers.

I can only assume that a public sector worker set fire to the poster's cat.

I think that must be a joke, but many of the other rabid responses aren't. As the Indie asked today, "who uses public services?". Well, it's mostly the less well off, so they'll be doubly hit by the rise in VAT and the reduction in services.

As a teenager I worked as a very lowly clerk for the Inland Revenue. The amount of hateful comments I received was extreme - I was insulted by friends and, worse, adult relatives at family parties and I was only about 17. There really was a genuine belief that the Government just took the money and did heaven knows what with it. Whatever it was, it wasn't educating their children, maintaining their roads or sorting their granny's hip out.

I lost my final salary scheme two years ago, had to increase my pension contributions and have had zero or below inflation salary reviews for the last few years, despite increasing workload and responsibility, and have been derided in the press as a "money sucking consultant", despite our customers actually queuing up for what we are doing, patient benefits and savings being delivered, and my public-sector peers being paid much more than me...

I think Cameron's point was, compared to the private sector, the wage bill for public services had increased much faster, and pension obligations faster still, and was one of the major contributions to budget.

It's still better than compulsory redundancies.....

Edited at 2010-06-22 04:45 pm (UTC)

But that's just evil public servants, right? Neutral or Good public servants won't be impacted, will they?

Evil voluntary sector workers may also be affected, if they're publicly funded.