Pensions judgement

The Judiciary is currently pissing me off. Not content with salaries ranging from £60,000 to £200,000 plus a range of perks, they have threatened to resign en masse if the new £1.5m cap on pensions pots is applied to them.

The cap isn't a true cap, you can put more in there if you like, it's just that you will be taxed 25% of your contributions above that level rather than receiving tax relief. And I'm guessing a £1.5m pension pot is enough to give you an income of £100,000 a year indefinitely. Bear in mind that even when Judges retire, they tend to sit on quangos and advisory bodies that keep them in additional pocket money until well after they lose their faculties.

I'm utterly disgusted with the threats to resign. Any Judge that threatens to leave because of this should be summarily sacked. I'm sure there are plenty of barristers whose public service ethic is such that the empty benches could be filled easily.

Thatcher screwed over the unions because she felt they had the state in a half nelson. If she had treated similarly the professions that milk the state for their own ends, maybe people would have a different view of her today.



Not quite as big a tax free pension pot for the judges as there is for the PM or the Deputy PM.