Ms Harman said in an interview over the weekend, Sir Fred "Should not count on being £650,000 a year better off, because it's not going to happen".
However, Gordon Brown in an interview with TalkSport has refused to state that the money will definitely be recovered. This will be because his legal team are saying this cannot be done, and the government is legally powerless to stop Sir Fred drawing his pension.
The Telegraph claims that their sources tell them that the PM has been infuriated by Harman's attempts to seize the limelight and posturing towards a challenge for the leadership. All is not well, me thinks.
As a lawyer, Harriet Harman should be aware that there is no legal recourse to reclaiming this money and has herself been unable to comment on how this can legally be done.
As I said last week, none of us are happy that such a massive amount of taxpayer money is going towards this reward of failure, but Sir Fred has done nothing wrong in having a pension. It is the government that failed to look at the books and committed tax payer cash before any conditions on it's use towards bonuses and pensions could be guaranteed.
Members of government are more and more frequently lining up in a vanity contest to position themselves in a future leadership role. If it wasn't costing us so much it might be quite entertaining.
1 comment:
Tuesday 17:30 Radio 4, someone from somewhere said " Parliament is not in the business of enacting backdated legislation to claw back one mans pension,but the taxman can decide to look upon pensions in different ways and tax it accordingly perhaps that is what Ms Harmon had in mind "
On the basis of "there but for the grace of god go I " I doubt that much serious effort will be made to claw back Fred Hoodwinks pension, who knows where it may end, all those bonuses, pensions and expenses put at ongoing risk.
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