Miles apart
Sir: Frank Johnson writing in his first edito- rial (4 November) does a disservice to Mr Blair and the idea of compulsory savings by suggesting they 'amount to' nothing more than taxation.
Ideologically, the two concepts stand miles apart, as is indicated by the Labour Party's willingness only now tentatively to broach the matter. Compulsory savings used, for instance, to purchase a private pension scheme would place ownership and control of the funds with the individual, instead of government, as is the case with taxation and the state pension. The psycho- logical and pragmatic differences are there- fore large and ones I find difficult to believe Mr Johnson, as editor of The Spec- tator, would seek to discourage.
Such a second pension, in addition to what is an increasingly inadequate state pension, could save the state a great deal of money (such as welfare payments to pen- sioners currently without adequate provi- sion) while beginning to tackle what is, along with the provision of long-term care (another possible avenue for compulsory savings), one of the greatest financial prob- lems of the future facing government today.
If Mr Johnson is putting himself forward as someone who is 'better at understanding economics' than Mr Blair, and who is con- cerned with the financial well-being of Britain, he will need to concentrate in future on understanding a little more and condemning a little less.
David Chandler
Uematsu Shukusha No, 4, Uematsu 5-8-12, Nagano-shi, Nagano-ken, Japan
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