sydenham central, you say that the Unions need to make a better case to garner more public support. I suspect they have already made a considerable case over the last century as most of us have benefitted from their endeavours and no longer have to work 80 hour weeks in dangerous conditions with no holiday. The retention of such benefits under pressure of market forces therefore needs our continued support.

The fact is that Clarkson went on pre watershed, in fact, tea time, TV and suggested that people ought to be executed for striking. This is a public broadcasting service. No doubt he was 'joking' however please excuse me if I do not find that funny. Of course I do not take him literally but there has to be boundaries around of this and he has broken them with bells on.

Slashing public sector pensions won't improve the situation of private sector pensions. If you lower the bar for the sector which has generally had good practice, you will have open season for an attach on everything else. I welcome a more thorough comparative exercise but think that these have already been done and found that public pensions are hardly gold plated. I think we should remember the tax breaks and interest relief given to people years ago which was actually paid for substantially at the expense of Council and housing association tenants. Everyone thinks they are paying for families to live on housing benefit, when actually it has usually been the other way round. And then there are the other economic and fiscal subsidies given to business, ( and banks- dont forget them) out of the public purse.

Private pensions are suffering as they rely on the market performance which has been notoriously poor over the last decade or so. It is the correction of the capitalist system that has caused this problem, not public sector workers taking funds out of private pension pots.