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Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Times
Making pensions popular is tough but vital
This column is about pensions. Please read it anyway. I know from running polls and focus groups, and from everyday life, that many people think pensions are boring, something to ignore, to put off until another day. Some of those people are politicians. They often see pensions as a low priority because decisions made today won't come home to roost for decades — after their next election and, quite likely, after the end of their careers. So Labour ministers should be commended for launching a Pensions Commission to address some of the biggest, slowest and trickiest issues in public policy. It'll do some good but the people responsible might not be around to get the credit. Though given that Torsten Bell, the annoyingly clever pensions minister, is also an annoyingly youthful 42, maybe he'll prove an exception. The commission's job is to ensure more money goes into the pension pots that will, eventually, support people in later life. This is a big, bad problem. Depending on how you measure it, more than a third of young workers are already on course for an inadequate retirement income. Women, ethnic minorities and the self-employed are especially at risk. Behind all this is one of the biggest yet least discussed changes of our age. This is the demise of defined benefit (DB) pensions, which guarantee a retirement income, and the shift to defined contribution (DC) schemes, which don't, because they're just pots of money put away until later. This is a big transfer of risk and responsibility from institutions (employers, mainly) to individuals. For earlier generations, someone else took decisions and responsibility for us in later life. Those of us who retire in the 2030s and beyond are going to be on our own. On our own to ensure we have enough to live on. On our own to decide how to make our savings last. Our longer lifespans make DB pensions unaffordable to employers. The same logic will inevitably push up the state pension age and, eventually, sweep away the unsustainable triple lock. Financial necessity means we will increasingly rely on private savings to support people in later life. But that necessity leads to a rewriting of the social contract, a rebalancing of what we owe to one another, and to future generations. As a society we are nowhere near grasping the scale and implications of this shift. The new commission can make a start on that but only if it can avoid the temptation to simply repeat things that have worked before, because the methods of the early 2000s can't be relied on now. The 2025 panel is a conscious echo of the Turner Commission, which ran for four years from 2002 and became the Platonic ideal of technocratic policymaking. Chaired by Adair Turner, a group of benign sages crafted every Whitehall wonk's favourite policy: auto-enrolment. By setting a new default of workers paying into a DC pension, Turner helped nudge more than ten million people into saving for their own retirement. Millions of people who have never heard of Turner or its work will be happier in later life because of it. Some people in the pensions sector hope that the new commission can repeat the Turner trick, magicking up a clever policy tweak that lulls workers and employers into putting aside non-trivial slices of cash for future decades. Some think that Australia shows how to boil this frog, with a series of staged increases in contributions from workers and companies scheduled years ahead. I'm not convinced. UK politics has moved a long way from the days of Turner. A comfortable consensus among experts about doing something in our long-term best interests sounds lovely to me. But also very fragile. What happens if an opposition politician on the make (Hi Nigel! Hello Kemi!) decides to rebrand 'incremental increases in workplace pension contributions' as 'a massive raid on wages and jobs'? Because in the end, the money that goes into pensions today has to come from somewhere. A small part of the answer is in old-fashioned salesmanship: sell higher pension contributions in populist terms. Without decent savings, you'll spend your later life dependent on others, including an unreliable state. To really Take Back Control of your future, put more in your pension pot. But the bigger challenge here is to look beyond stealthy tweaks and address the public indifference that makes stealth necessary. To deliver real good, and earn history's plaudits, clever Mr Bell and his clever commission must change the way the country thinks and feels about pensions. We should require employers to disclose and display their pension contribution rates on all job ads, so workers recognise them as part of pay. Automatically open a private pension pot for every child born in Britain and offer tax breaks to parents and relatives paying into pots with a marketable name. ('Happy birthday, darling. I've put £20 in your BritSaver.') Level with the country about the vast difference in pension provision between the public and private sectors but also within the public sector: there is a big difference in pension provision for doctors and dinner ladies. Make pensions a central and visible part of our lives. Tell people, again and again: your pension is your money, so take it as seriously as you would any other cash. Instead of taking inertia and indifference as constants, start a proper conversation with the country about pension saving. Many of my fellow pensions nerds think what I'm describing is impossible. They say people can't be persuaded to fully engage with pensions — the subject is too complicated, too distant, too boring. Hence policy must be done by stealth; despite us, not with us. But in an age of populism, that just won't do. Culture isn't just upstream of politics but of policy, too. We don't need new pension policy as much as we need new cultural norms around pensions. Boring? Pensions are about life and death, about fairness, duty, self-reliance. Pensions are about security, freedom and comfort for millions of people. Good pensions policy is about looking after our children and their children, when they are grown and old. Getting this right will mean that long after we're gone, their lives will be better than they would otherwise have been. If we can't make that story engaging, we deserve the judgment of history that future generations will pass on us in their impoverished later lives. James Kirkup is a fellow of the Social Market Foundation
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
STEPHEN DAISLEY: Of course the SNP has never been in politics for Unionists... now it seems not to care for Nationalists, either
The older you get the grumpier you become about repeats, and not just on television. In the world of public policy, you begin to notice that the same bad ideas keep coming round and round. The sales pitch might be altered, the window dressing rejigged, but the goods being flogged remain unchanged. Albert Einstein said repeating the same action while expecting a different outcome was the definition of madness, but it's also an uncanny description of politics. John Swinney 's new independence plan, announced at the end of last week, proposes a three-pronged approach. First, it commits to building up support for separation so that it becomes the settled will of the vast majority of Scots. Next, it undertakes to ramp up pressure on Westminster to concede that will and permit another referendum to confirm it. Finally, it asks the voters to give the SNP another term in charge at next year's Scottish Parliament elections. The word 'new' is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here. Swinney is not submitting any novel tactics or strategies; he offers no answers to impediments economic or constitutional. He is simply rewrapping the same hollow pledges in a shinier bow, and he is doing it for cynical reasons. A growing faction inside the SNP wants Swinney gone and replaced by a younger, more aggressive leader like Stephen Flynn, whom they believe can regain momentum on the constitution. Swinney is looking out for his own skin, not Scotland. In his defence, he's hardly the first SNP leader to string along the party faithful with empty promises. There is an Indyref 2 panic button at Bute House and, little more than a year into his leadership, Swinney has punched it. It's a wonder this button still works given the scale of overuse in the past decade. In March 2016, Nicola Sturgeon hit the alarm and announced 'a new initiative to build support for independence' that summer. Once summer was over, she unveiled a 'new conversation' on independence, then, the following month, a consultation on an Indyref2 Bill. In March 2017, Sturgeon said autumn 2018 would be a 'common sense' time for a new referendum and, later that month, that she planned to request a Section 30 order from Westminster. The following May, the panic alarm was back in use when Sturgeon published the report of her Sustainable Growth Commission into 'the economic opportunities of independence'. In April 2019, she confirmed her government would be 'giving people a choice on independence later in this term of parliament'. That October, she told SNP conference there would be a referendum in 2020. In January 2021, Sturgeon promised a referendum if the SNP won that May's Holyrood elections and then, in September, commissioned a 'detailed prospectus' on the case for independence. Two months later, she told SNP conference that her independence campaign would relaunch in 2022. In June 2022, the Indyref button was jabbed again, as Sturgeon set out plans for a referendum in 2023. Then, that November, she declared the 2024 general election a 'de facto referendum'. Come October 2023, her successor Humza Yousaf stated that election would in fact be an opportunity to give the SNP a mandate to enter negotiations for a second referendum. Then last June, his successor John Swinney said voting SNP in the following month's election would 'intensify the pressure to secure Scottish independence'. For a decade, party members have been left waiting for a referendum that was never coming and perhaps never will. The SNP has enough financial woes as it is, but its constitutional strategists ought to be paying royalties to the estate of Samuel Beckett. The secret to the SNP's success in the Alex Salmond and early Sturgeon years was its positioning as a big-tent, New Labour-style party. By being all things to all people, the Nationalists were able to cobble together a formidable electoral coalition. Independence supporters could back the SNP safe in the knowledge that secession was its chief priority, while Unionists could back them knowing they were in no hurry to secede. That tent has been stretched to breaking point. Swinney's latest ruse will have been greeted with horror by pro-Union voters and people of all constitutional persuasions who want to see the Scottish Government focused on the economy, services and public safety for the time being. He was supposed to be different. A fresh start. A first minister who would move beyond division and get Holyrood back on track. Instead, he has revealed himself to be every bit the political tribalist that Sturgeon and Yousaf were, more fixated on internal party disputes than on the concerns of ordinary Scots. Swinney has made clear that he puts party before nation. How can he expect voters who put Scotland before the SNP to lend him their votes? And while he disregards the interests of pro-Union voters, he doesn't do so to serve the interests of pro-independence voters. He puts party before nation but also puts self before party. All Yes voters get from Swinney is pandering. He has no intention of doing anything for them. He talks independence to get them riled up and out to the polls to vote SNP but, once the ballots are in, the constitution tumbles back down the hierarchy of priorities. Unionists decry the contempt in which they are held within the senior ranks of the SNP, but they should spare a thought for the grubby, exploitative way in which Yes voters are treated. Set aside your own thoughts about independence. It is something half the people in this country believe in, many of them passionately and some of them their whole life long. Time and again they were assured by Sturgeon, then Yousaf, and now Swinney that it was coming yet for a' that. One more plan, one more push. It's within reach, almost there. Vote here, donate there. But it wasn't coming, it still isn't, and it won't be any time soon. At this point, there are two paths to independence. Convince Westminster to allow a repeat of the 2014 vote. Granting another referendum would be an act of unparalleled stupidity, sure to do grievous harm to Britain, and would require a prime minister with the strategic nous of a baked potato. You can see why the SNP might harbour hopes for Keir Starmer, but it is still highly unlikely that Westminster would take the risk. Alternatively, you could go down the route of a unilateral declaration of independence, but it's fraught with risk, has no guarantee of success and might even make some important nations ill-disposed to Scotland. (They have their own separatist movements and it would not be in their interests for a Scottish UDI to be a success.) If Holyrood declares independence, there is no mechanism to compel Westminster or any foreign state to recognise it. Instead of being honest with their voters, the SNP leadership spins out fantasies like Swinney's three-pronged plan and tries to gull ordinary Nationalists into thinking independence is imminent, so they keep voting and donating. Giving people false hope is one of the cruellest things you can do in politics but the SNP does it to its own voters without compunction. The SNP has never been in politics for Unionists, of course, but it's no longer in it for Nationalists either. It has ceased to be a big-tent party and has become a narrow elite that exists only to serve its own interests and maintain itself in power. No plan, no matter how many prongs it has, is going to change that. The only way forward is for all Scots, Unionists and Nationalists alike, to declare their independence from the SNP at the ballot box.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Letters to the Editor, July 17th: On school summer holidays, regulating the property market and a man of letters
Sir, – I read with interest the recent discussion on the length of school summer holidays and the suggestion that they should be shortened to better accommodate working parents. While the challenges faced by families during the summer months are very real, I believe we are asking the wrong question. Yes, most families now rely on two incomes to stay afloat. Yes, summer camps are expensive, inconsistent, and often logistically unworkable. But does that mean we should surrender our children's precious time off to the ever-increasing demands of the adult working world and the bottomless greed of corporations, who want to extract ever more from their employees? READ MORE Must we prepare young kids now for the drudgery of a lifetime of 20-25 days of precious annual leave by denying them the joy of long summer breaks while they are young? Rather than cutting short the only real break children get in the year, maybe we should be asking why our workplaces and public policies haven't sufficiently evolved to support modern family life. If the corporate world depends on the working parents who drive their enormous profits, then it's time it stepped up – through expanded summer leave programmes, more flexible hours, or even onsite childcare or camps. And if the State does indeed recognise the importance of education and also downtime (and downtime can be educational), it should also recognise the value of accessible, enriching and affordable summer supports and programs – perhaps delivered through schools and public institutions. The working parents contribute enough taxes. The current system leaves parents dreading and then merely enduring the summer holidays, instead of anticipating carefree and unstructured times which present opportunities for family interaction, new types of learning, not to mention a decent blast of fresh air before the onset of winter. The solution is not to take more from our children but to demand more from the systems that loudly claim to support families, and whose pockets are certainly deep enough to do a little more. Let children enjoy their long summers. They'll be part of the workforce soon enough – and for long enough. – Yours, etc, GERARD REYNOLDS, Ballyboden, Dublin 16. Sir, – Breda O' Brien makes some interesting observations regarding school principal workload: ' Only bottle recycling keeps schools open, ' (July 12th). Leading teaching and learning – the job they applied for and are qualified for – is now jostling for position in an overcrowded space. Principals are bowled off their feet by the tsunami of being financial controller, accountant, HR manager, IT consultant, building project manager, security consultant – and more besides. This is also reflected in the work day of the current school secretary. In providing vital support to all of the above, the school secretary role is one of PA, administrator, data controller, payroll, accounts. The quaint role of a bit of filing, photocopying and answering the phone is dim and distant. We set up every new teacher and SNA on to the Department of Education payroll system. We submit thousands of pay claims every week for substitute teachers and SNAs. We oversee and arrange any amount of appointments by visiting professionals to the school. We order, organise and distribute the school book scheme. We make complex data returns to various Department of Education sectors. We pay bus escorts and cleaners and make the associated Revenue returns. We liaise with the Department of Health regarding child vaccinations and health screenings. We sign passport applications for the Department of Foreign Affairs. We deal with the Department of Social Protection regarding Social Welfare claims and more recently the behemoth that is the school meals programme. In other words, we do public service work, all day long. We are public servants in all but name. Yet, we are denied access to the public service pension scheme, uniquely within the school setting. Is it any wonder that school secretaries, along with caretaker colleagues, have voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action? We are not asking for anything that our teacher and SNA colleagues don't already rightly have. We are not asking for anything that other school secretaries doing identical jobs don't already have (Education and Training Board school secretaries have public servant status.) We love our jobs but will not be returning to work in September. We deserve recognition for our public service work, carried out for decades in this country, providing for the delivery of education to the children of this State. – Yours, etc, GINA BYRNE, Birdhill, Co Tipperary. Regulating the property market Sir – Our esteemed Government is reducing the regulations of new apartments and adding more regulations to the rental market. These actions have all been done before and the results speak for themselves. It is well known that insanity is repeating the same actions over and over and expecting different results. As an estate agent I used to assume politicians just don't understand the property market and that is why they are unable to take the necessary corrective measures to fix it. Sadly, I have now come to the realisation that they do indeed understand it. They know in a market such as ours, where demand exceeds supply, continuing and indeed accelerating Government foreign direct investment (FDI) policy is literally 'pouring petrol' on the overheating property fire. They are, therefore aware there is zero chance of them being able to solve the current housing crisis. Hence, insane property market interference makes sense – because their only option is to pretend they are doing 'the right thing'. If you can fool people into believing that you can build apartments quicker than you can land aeroplanes, the only fly in the ointment I can see is the small article in the Constitution, the one about protecting the 'family'. I might be simple, but even I can see an FDI policy that creates massive corporate immigration, causing a housing crisis, which in turn creates lower paid forced emigration – displaces both the immigrants and emigrants from their immediate families. Perhaps only the Constitution can save us from all this insanity. – Yours, etc, NICK CRAWFORD, Dalkey, Co Dublin. Sir, – I share the overall concern expressed by John McCartney about the Help to Buy scheme, that demand-side intervention in the housing market appears to increase house prices without necessarily increasing supply of housing (' Help to Buy is seen as free money but it just results in higher house prices and more tax ,' July 9th). I don't share his dismissal of increased supply as the most important part of improving affordability. Dr McCartney offers three more significant elements of house price inflation than supply: planning, professional services fees (exacerbated by lack of competition), and financial sector incentives. I'm not a property market economist. But I did recently buy a house (not using the Help to Buy scheme). Professional fees for both sides (solicitors, estate agent, surveyor, etc) accounted for less than 5 per cent of the purchase price. I had a wide range of choice among which to shop around for these professional services; more competition may well reduce these costs, but it's hard to see any realistic reduction having much impact on the overall purchase price. Moreover, as someone who educates the next generation of solicitors, it's hard to see what type of regulation could encourage more law graduates to work as conveyancing solicitors in private practice, rather than for corporate firms – especially if we expect them to make less money from conveyancing. It is already difficult for smaller firms to attract talented law graduates, without expecting them to cut their fees for the services they provide. Professional fees paid by developers to corporate firms are a different matter – perhaps these need to fall to reduce the costs of new housing developments. But, Dr McCartney doesn't think we need very many new developments, and it's hard to see how corporate firms' pricing structures affect the second-hand conveyancing market. 'Incentives for the financial sector' seems to imply that the taxpayer money currently given to private home purchasers to hand over to developers and banks, should instead be given to banks so they will lend more money to developers. Perhaps Dr McCartney can explain what he means in more detail. In any event, it's hard to see the point of encouraging banks to lend more to developers, unless that allows developers to build more housing, which Dr McCartney doesn't believe is necessary. Planning reforms are therefore the strongest example given by Dr McCartney. I certainly think it should be easier to build housing at all segments of the market, in all locations around the country, than our planning laws currently allow. Indeed, there is a strong case that 'legalise housing' should be the political clarion call of my generation. But again, it doesn't make sense to change laws that currently limit the amount of housing that can be built, unless at least part of the goal is to build more housing. –Yours, etc, DR ALAN EUSTACE , Assistant Professor of Private Law, School of Law, Trinity College, Dublin 2. Still talking rubbish Sir, – Laura O'Mara is asking :Why can we not clean up when leaving a beach during this beautiful weather (Letters, July 15th)? In the mid-1970s I sent a similar letter to this newspaper with the exact same question, after having spent most of a day on a beach. And likewise suggested how easy it was to avoid the problem. – Yours, etc, KAREN HIGGINS, Mallow, Co Cork. Man on a mission Sir, – Thank you for Joe Humphreys's informative and interesting article on Irish missionaries (' What did you do if you were young, Irish and idealistic 60 years ago? Join the missions ,' July 14th). He makes reference to the benign influence of a pioneering Loreto nun on the Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai; how Bono became an activist as a result of the work of two Spiritan priests and how children's rights were advanced in East Africa by the fearless campaigning of a Mercy sister. Reflecting on the work of Sr Colombiere Kelly; Fr Jack and Fr Aengus Finucane and Sr Mary Killeen and their promotion of Kingdom values, I am reminded of something the late Pope Paul VI stated in his Encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi: 'The modern world listens more readily to witnesses than it does to preachers.' – Yours, etc, FR LAURENCE CULLEN, Geevagh, Co Sligo. Medical bodies and Gaza Sir, – The recent letter from Chris Fitzpatrick concerning attacks on medical staff and infrastructure in Gaza eloquently sets the context for our letter. We are a group of medical graduates, University of Galway, 1984, who have come together to do what we can to support Gaza, with a focus on the medical aspects. A month ago we wrote to some of the leading medical organisations in this country. We asked that they would not only issue statements of condemnation of attacks on healthcare workers by the Israel Defense Forces, but that they would also contact equivalent organisations in Israel requesting statements of their position in this regard. We also asked them to consider severing any academic or formal ties which they have with such organisations. We pointed out that condemnation on its own has achieved nothing. The Israeli Medical Organisation (IMA) website carries a statement by the World Medical Organisation on a recent Iranian attack on the Soroka medical facility in southern Israel. With absolutely no sense of irony, it quotes the WMA as saying '… any strike on a hospital violates international law'. This appears to be the only condemnation of such violence cited by the IMA – they are silent on the deliberate targeting of Gazan healthcare facilities and staff by their own military. We received responses from The Irish Hospital Consultants Association and The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland but not from The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland or the Irish Medical Organisation. We acknowledge first of all that these organisations have made strong condemnatory statements on the healthcare and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland engages in practical assistance; also that as we are not collectively members or graduates of the various bodies there was no obligation on any of them to provide a response to us. We write today however to express our dismay that none of the organisations has taken up our suggestion of confronting the IMA or other Israeli medical institutions about their silence. We acknowledge that such action is not necessarily simple and that from their perspective there may be financial and administrative factors to consider. However, this is overwhelmingly an ethical/moral issue and we believe it is incumbent on our leading medical and higher educational organisations to show leadership. Therefore, we repeat our call to them to take practical steps to make it clear to their Israeli equivalents that silence in the face of genocide and war crimes has consequences. Trinity College Dublin is the only Irish academic organisation to have taken such steps and we urge our colleagues in leadership roles in Irish medicine to follow their example. – Yours, etc, DR ANN MARIE CONNOLLY, DR MARGARET CONNOLLY, DR ALEXANDRA DUNCAN, DR SUSAN FINNERTY, DR SIOBHAN GRAHAM, (And five others), Stillorgan, Dublin. Sir, – A week ago , your newspaper was good enough to publish my letter which posed the question:'Could anyone please furnish an instance where anyone has criticised Israel without being accused of being anti-Semitic?' I thank the former minister for justice, Alan Shatter, for yesterday in front of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, answering the question. (' Sharp exchanges as Shatter compares trade ban Bill to 1930s Germany ,'July 16th). – Yours, etc, JOHN CRONIN, Terenure, Dublin 6. Man of letters Sir, – A very regular letter writer to your august columns was Pádraig McCarthy whom I had the privilege to know. One day I was complimenting him on how many letters he had published and he took me by the arm to say ' you should see how many don't get published'. Pádraig was a very regular correspondent, usually on moral issues. What most of your readers will not know was that he was a retired Catholic priest and that he has recently passed away. His letters were always gentle and succinct. Just as he was himself. A good friend, may he rest in peace. – Yours, etc, JOHN RYAN, Sandyford, Dublin 18.
CBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Income inequality hit record high at start of 2025, Statistics Canada says
The gap between the country's highest- and lowest-income households reached a record high in the first quarter of 2025, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. The agency said the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent of the income distribution and the bottom 40 per cent grew to 49 percentage points in the first three months of the year. "It's not a surprise," said Katherine Scott, a senior researcher focused on gender equality and public policy at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Scott said the current economic uncertainty is "contributing to a lot of economic distress," in particular for young people seeking employment. Statistics Canada said the measure has increased each year following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first quarter of 2025, it said the increase came as the highest-income households gained from investments, while the lowest-income households saw wages decline. Scott said many individuals at the higher end of the income scale didn't see their incomes decline during the pandemic, with many staying in their jobs. "But more importantly, they were in a position to take advantage of the huge run-up of the investment markets that happened at that time and have continued to increase ever since," Scott said. Disposable income gap widens Those in the bottom 20 per cent of the income distribution saw the weakest growth in disposable income in the first quarter at 3.2 per cent compared with a year ago, as their average wages edged down 0.7 per cent. The lowest-income households also saw the largest drop in net investment income as their earnings fell 35.3 per cent, while net transfers received, including increased government support measures, rose 31.2 per cent. The average disposable income for those in the top 20 per cent of the income distribution increased at the fastest pace of any income group as they benefited from a 7.7 per cent increase compared with a year earlier. The highest-income households saw a 4.7 per cent increase in average wages and a 7.4 per cent gain in investment income. Statistics Canada said the wealth gap also increased as the top 20 per cent of the wealth distribution accounted for 64.7 per cent of Canadians' total net worth in the first quarter, averaging $3.3 million per household. The bottom 40 per cent of the wealth distribution accounted for 3.3 per cent of net worth, averaging $85,700 per household. Scott highlighted that following the 2008-09 recession, there was a "real discussion" regarding rising income inequality, which doesn't appear to be taking place currently. "This kind of information, the largest gap ever, it's a wake-up call. We can't sustain it, we have to pay attention to the structure of our economy and the distribution of that," she said. "We have to grow the pie, but we have to talk about the distribution of the pie. It matters that people are able to live a decent quality of life with dignity. I think that's a really important public policy goal, which seems to be lost in the current conversation."
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Super-injunctions have no place in our judicial system
Super-injunctions are bad things. They suppress debate about matters that should be in the public domain by rendering unlawful even a reference to their very existence. These gagging orders have been used by footballers and actors to block disclosures about their private lives. But they had never before been used to block debate in parliament until the fiasco over the leak of the Afghan resettlement list. Ministers felt it necessary to seek an injunction to protect the lives of thousands of Afghan soldiers who fought alongside British troops during the war. Sir Ben Wallace, defence secretary in the Conservative government, said he did not apologise for making the court application and denied it was a 'cover-up' designed to spare departmental blushes. But the type of injunction that was granted was all-consuming. It allowed vast amounts of public money to be spent without parliament being informed, let alone consulted, while keeping the most senior ministers in the dark. Even the judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, called this unprecedented during hearings about the length of the gag. Super-injunctions have strayed far from tittle-tattle about cheating celebrities into serious matters of public policy. By definition we do not know whether others exist, or cannot say if we do. At Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir Starmer dumped the blame for the debacle on to the Tories since they were in office at the time. However, he did not say whether he would have done the same had the leak happened on his watch. Super-injunctions are pernicious devices that have no place in our judicial system. Secret justice is no justice at all.
