Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/552/6497
From The Socialist newspaper, 15 October 2008
Mandelson - New minister for the rich
PETER MANDELSON, Baron of Foy and Hartlepool is now secretary of state for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and president of the Board of Trade. He obviously thinks he merits a salary as big and impressive-sounding as his new job and his new title.
On top of his £100,000-plus cabinet salary, he will get a 'parachute payment' of £6,500 each month for three years to compensate for his old job as EU commissioner in Brussels. He will also get a £31,000 a year pension from his 65th birthday, rising with inflation. To get that privately, Mandelson would need a pension fund of £750,000. All together his 'golden goodbye' adds up to £1 million.
This year, Mandelson was a summer holiday guest on multi-billionaire Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska's yacht. Purely coincidentally of course, Oleg got £50 million worth of EU trade concessions on aluminium import duties.
Clearly Mandelson will be every inch a minister for the rich, and he will be part of a government that is looking at job cuts, wage freezes and attacks on pension rights for the rest of us.
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In The Socialist 15 October 2008:
Sack the bankers not the workers
"Give us what the bankers got"
Socialist Party editorial
Government bailouts: major measures to prop up capitalism
Socialist Party Marxist analysis
Recession in Britain: Anger and bitterness towards the financiers
Repossessions grow as banking crisis hits
Socialism 2008
Capitalism in crisis: Why you should come to Socialism 2008
Socialist Party campaigns
Political protest in Liverpool will not be silenced!
Mandelson - New minister for the rich
Planning Bill: Local views sidelined for big business
Socialist Party women
Defend and extend abortion rights
Education
Opposition grows to Kirklees schools plans
Bangor: Organising to fight university tuition fees
Nottingham Trent University attempts to de-recognise the lecturers' union
Staff and students unite over pensions
International socialist news and analysis
Austria: Far right makes big gains - left vote squeezed
Afghanistan - war without end?
Socialist Party review
75th anniversary of Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole
Socialist Party workplace news and analysis
London bus workers strike for a living wage
Local government Scotland: Reject the pay offer!
Unison right-wing insecurity begins to show
Successful outcome for Suzanne Muna
Standing for president of Usdaw
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