Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Auto-enrolled into funding the Tories?

There is a welcome "revolution" in pensions about to hit Britain pretty soon.  In 2012 there will be at long last be a national trust based low cost pension scheme aimed at low to moderate earners and their employers (NEST). 

This is a massive advance that could eventually even help eliminate pensioner poverty in this country. 

But there could be a problem.  Trust will be a huge issue to ensure that this scheme is a success.    NEST is currently advertising for fund managers to bid to run these funds.

Now, there is a certain major international fund manager called Fidelity who may be considering whether or not to tender for one of NEST's funds.

Not that you would evcr know from their literature but Fidelity is also one of the biggest financial supporters of the Conservative Party.  Check out here, here and here. They have poured hundreds of thousands of pounds into the Tories in recent years (£495k in 2004-2008).  This is money made from small savers and pension policy holders who would not a clue that the profits from managing their money were being used to fund the Tories.

If Fidelity was chosen as a NEST fund manager then we could find that workers are being auto enrolled by law into paying policy fees to a company that has been a major paymaster of the Conservative Party. 

This is plain wrong.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you still stand by the Union view that Britain should be in the Euro?
Seems Mrs Thatchers opposition to entry seems rather prscient now.

John Gray said...

What union view? Most unions do not did not support the Euro?