Old Curmudgeon

Is the forward defensive still a thing? #freepalestine #dontbuythesun #abolishthemonarchy #joinaunion #PCS #merseyside

[PCS - the civil service union @pcs_union]

PCS retired members’ chair Sandra Durkin spoke about the Capita pensions crisis for the Insource Now! campaign video today. She was brilliant, explaining the impact on members and why bringing services back in-house matters.

She was joined by workers from UNISON and RMT to help make the case for insourcing.

The giant cheque represents £6 billion in profits for outsourcing companies from government contracts. Public money that should support services, workers, and the people who rely on them.
#InsourceNow

[PCS Merseyside ARMS @PcsMerseyarms]

New article on the Triple Lock, your questions answered on the Capita pensions crisis & issue 3 of Up In ARMs now available here: https://t.co/A6IzXgq1Pq

[PCS - the civil service union @pcs_union]

🚨PCS Press Release:
Capita leaves 93,000 civil service pension cases waiting
as March 2027 deadline set to be missed

Around 93,000 civil service pension cases are still waiting for legally required corrections, with PCS warning that Capita has yet to begin processing the outstanding McCloud cases.

The Cabinet Office has now confirmed that the March 2027 deadline for completing the work will be missed, adding to the growing chaos following Capita’s takeover of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, which has already left thousands of retiring civil servants waiting months for their pension payments.

The McCloud judgment found that changes to public service pension schemes had unlawfully discriminated against younger members. The government was subsequently required to provide a remedy, allowing affected members to have their pension benefits for the relevant period reviewed and corrected where necessary.

Around 73,000 retired or deceased members and 20,000 deferred members remain affected. The work was originally due to be completed by March 2025, but the deadline was extended to 31st March 2027 (see notes section)
.
Capita was then due to begin the McCloud work when it took over the scheme in December 2025 working to that spring 2027 deadline, but PCS understands that it remains in the design stage which it entered in July but actually began working on this month leaving the outstanding cases yet to be processed.

PCS is regularly contacted by retired members seeking information about when their pensions will be corrected. For some, the delay could mean waiting longer for significant sums in pension arrears and interest.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said:
“I have spoken to many retired members, as well as working members who need to change contingent decisions made in 2025. They have been waiting far too long and have been badly let down.
“These people are waiting for legally required corrections to their pensions, yet Capita has still not begun processing the outstanding cases. We cannot even give members reliable information about when their pensions will be corrected. Capita’s mess continues to pile up at the expense of members. I don’t know what more the Government needs to see before it finally says enough is enough.” See less

[Trades Union Congress @The_TUC]

BREAKING 🚨 | Households have spent an extra £14k on bills since 2021.

Working people have been paying for the costs of foreign wars for too long. The government must take immediate action to reduce the cost of living - the answer is taxing the super-rich.

[Neil Stone @DrNeilStone]

"Do your own research," they said.

So I did

28 years, a medical degree, a PhD, and three postgraduate diplomas in infectious diseases later, I conclude that vaccines save millions of lives and do not cause autism.

[PCS Merseyside ARMS @PcsMerseyarms]

Latest updates on the Civil Service pensions crisis (12 October) and the Save Liverpool Women's Hospital campaign are available now on the PCS Merseyside ARMs website here: https://t.co/A6IzXgq1Pq

[PCS - the civil service union @pcs_union]

📢 PCS MEMBERS: IMPORTANT BALLOT UPDATE

With our national ballot expected to open on 20 October, PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote answers members’ questions about our campaign for better pay, pensions, job security, and rights at work.

Watch the video and get ballot-ready
#PCS

[PCS - the civil service union @pcs_union]

Three years of genocide is a horrifying reality to face. We must do everything we can to end every mechanism that has enabled it to continue, writes Martial Kurtz from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign https://t.co/FhqL1RIdFB
#PCS 🇵🇸

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

Thatcherism devastated the UK's industrial base, put three million people on the dole and plunged entire communities into the kind of poverty they still haven't recovered from four decades later. Kemi Badenoch is offering us a repeat performance.

[WulfHelm 💙🖤 @Wulf_Helm]

Everything that's wrong with our nation.

Everything that's broken.

Everything that's corrupted.

Started with her.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

In 1967 Britain had more electric vehicles on its roads than every other country on earth put together, and they were all delivering milk.

There were tens of thousands of them. The milk float: open sided, battery under the floor, top speed of about 15 miles an hour, and a whine you could pick out in your sleep. It was charged overnight at the depot and was back there by lunchtime.

It carried glass bottles. Each one was collected from your step the next morning, washed and refilled. A bottle went round like that 20 or 30 times before it broke. The foil cap went for scrap. There was no other packaging.

The milk had come from farms within a few miles, through a local dairy, and was on the step before 7.

So here is what the country had. A zero-emission delivery fleet. Reusable containers with a return rate any modern scheme would kill for. No plastic. A supply chain you could cycle the length of. A man who noticed if an old lady's bottles were piling up, and knocked.

It was dismantled in about 15 years, because a supermarket could sell milk a few pence cheaper in a plastic jug as a way of getting you through the door.

Every piece of that system is now the subject of a government target for 2040.

It was running in 1967, silently, in the dark, and nobody thought it was worth a mention.

[John Cusack @johncusack]

To the eternal shame of the west - justice must come .

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

I seem to have upset the @SuellaBraverman fan club - so let me be clear.

This women sows hate, lies and division. She is wrong.

She does not represent the vast majority of Britons.

RT if you agree

P.s. multiculturalism is great.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

The former British home secretary and buddhist daughter of a Kenyan descendant of Goan Catholics, and a Mauritian Hindu descendent of Tamil, born in Harrow, studied in New York, married to a Jewish South African who lived In Israel says multiculturalism has failed.

[liam cunningham @liamcunningham1]

The tide has turned folks. You don’t have the luxury of silence anymore.
Silence is complicity.

[Old Curmudgeon @AKASDM]

@Merseytravel Hi, I have an 060's local concession pass. Does this cover me on the 82A bus from Aigburth to Hale Village or will I need to pay a fare on the bus? Thanks

[H147Dan @Dan900H]

@The_TUC And invest in coal, oil and gas.

[Husam Zomlot @hzomlot]

Palestine’s message from Liverpool, beside the UK Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband shortly after his historic Labour conference speech.

To the British people who led the largest and longest protest movement this country has ever seen, in solidarity with the people of Palestine: thank you. This moment belongs to you and to the global movement for justice, accountability and peace.

The march to freedom continues.

[Defend Our Juries @DefendOurJuries]

15 minutes later, they admitted their mistake and released him without any apology.

He was in the area outside the Labour Party conference with his dog, his mum and his sister witnessing the arrests of over 150 peaceful sign-holders, and at no point did he hold a sign himself.