Reeves plan to take control of public sector pension plans for ‘risky’ investments sees resisters on council likely to be deselected
The deep-rooted anti-democratic nature of the Labour right and the Starmer regime in particular has gone on show again with the party machine’s seizure of control of Labour-run Tameside Council in Greater Manchester – as an apparent prelude to seizing the huge, and hugely successful, Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF), which Tameside runs for the whole city region, for Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s nationwide grab of public sector and other ‘defined benefit’ pensions so she can ‘free’ their cash for her own, potentially reckless infrastructure and business investments.
Councillors in Tameside have been resistant to the idea of merging their own plan, which generates a large surplus, with Reeves’s ‘bulk’ scheme, saying that its success should benefit current and past Greater Manchester council staff instead of enriching the Treasury or funding potentially far more risky and less profitable investments.
But now the Labour national executive (NEC) has seized control both of Tameside Council and the selection processes for councillors – and is said to be setting up resistance councillors for deselection to smooth the road for Reeves’s pension grab. Political journalist Michael Crick summarised:
The Andrew Gwynne row is fascinating. Behind it lies the poisonous Labour politics on Tameside and its council, where two Labour leaders have left office since 2022. Most interesting is big row over Great Manchester Pension Fund [GMPF], worth around £30bn, hugely successful, and by far [the] biggest council pension fund in UK. It was long ago decided Tameside Council should run GMPF on behalf of all 10 Greater Manchester councils and a few other state bodies.
But Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently revealed she wants GMPF and other 85 local council pension funds to consolidate their funds, save admin costs, and invest in new major projects…
…But some Tameside councillors say Reeves plans may involve GMPF funds being put into much riskier investments which could generate lower returns. The anti-Reeves dissidents argue the sole responsibility of GMPF (run by Tameside Council) is to council staff and former staff in the GMPF scheme, and to local council taxpayers. If GMPF makes big surplus, they say, that should just mean greater benefits for staff in GMPF.
Now Labour NEC have taken control of Tameside council leadership, and also direct control of council candidate selection ahead of 2026 Tameside elections. The reselection process, due to start in April, is likely to see opponents of Reeves’ pension plans ousted as candidates.
Keir Starmer promised, during his campaign to become Labour leader, to empower local party members and never to interfere in selections – a promise that was, like all his others, shredded as soon as he got his backside in the leader’s seat. Starmer and his faction instead seized control of selection processes across the UK to oust left-wingers and to ensure factional allies were selected, even when those candidates were paedophiles or had allegations of serious sexual assault and abuse against them.
Now it seems the same rigging and democracy-crushing are being applied to seize the funds on which around two million UK council workers depend for their pensions – so that a woman accused, by an old boss and others no less, of lying about her employment record as an economist and who declared donations from a multi-millionaire for designer clothes as ‘office support’ can give it to a lackey ‘Investment Minister’ linked to an infamous fraud.
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If it ain’t broke…
WTF’s the matter with reeves? Desperate to gamble with others’ money…Got a scratchcard addiction or summit?
I wonder how many people aged 55 or over within that scheme will be looking at withdrawing lump sums because of that.
I’d also be keen to learn thieves’ future holiday plans, and I’d be extremely concerned* should a yacht cruise be on the itinerary…
*Not for reeves’ wellbeing, of course.
Just wondering if GMPF’s successes are anything to do with this…
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/02/09/lgps-israel/
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has released updated research revealing that local government pensions scheme (LGPS) funds, administered by local councils across Britain, invest over £12 billion in companies enabling Israel’s genocide, military occupation, and apartheid against Palestinians….(Continues)
(PS that link just happened to coincide with my first visit to the canary website in many months).
Off-Topic…
Second labour MP in whatsapp ‘business’ named as oliver ryan (Burnley)
Earlier tv report said other mp was also a greater manchester MP. Dunno who taught them geography. 🙄
Burnley is 12 miles away from the closet town in Greater Manchester- Rochdale..
Apparently, Ryan WAS a member of Tameside council until 2023, so I suppose he remained as part of this whatsapp group.
So Greater Manchester Pension Fund will be the test case? Great! There goes my pension!
It would tie in with their hatred of pensioners, their craving for other people’s money, and their madness that “growth” can only come from “investment” rather than from good ideas, of which they have none.
Here cometh miss turpin to control whops miss appreciate the pension pot but whatever it means less for those paying in
So, just watched the coverage of this Watts App group on BBC breakfast, who stated it seems to be centred around Greater Manchester, consisting of some MPs and councillors. Clearing the decks I reckon to take our pension scheme. Robert Maxwell anyone?
This lot make Robert Maxwell look like a paragon of virtue.
Ah yes, good to see others getting onto the maxwell similarities.
Friend of israel was cap’n bob, not unlike the smarmerite cabal. Another with links to paedophilia.
Anywho…
Perhaps a joint investment (with some fluorescent orange ‘murrican blag merchant and rapist) in some prime waterfront land on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean is on the prospectus?
I think anybody with LG service and money in LG pension pots should be getting their paperwork out and ‘considering their position’ – this money ain’t gonna be around much longer when Thieves gets her hands on it!
Seems like power-grabbing is still very much flavour of the month in Starmer-land – did you all see this one yesterday?
… “U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts” …https://archive.ph/3Pp0U#selection-537.0-537.60
Basically, Apple will be forced to provide a back door into users’ encrypted accounts … and that’s not just for users in the UK … as the article says:
“a consultant advising the United States on encryption matters, said Apple would be barred from warning its users that its most advanced encryption no longer provided full security. The person deemed it shocking that the U.K. government was demanding Apple’s help to spy on non-British users without their governments’ knowledge.”
How very apposite that this has recently been put up on YouTube again — a viewable copy too, compared to some previous ones:
George Orwell’s “1984” (1956) Drama/Sci-Fi | Edmond O’Brien, Michael Redgrave
So is this different to the Peter Cushing BBC version made around the same time?
No, this is the film version from 1956, the BBC one was from 1954. As far as I’m aware they were both made here in England.
While both kept close to the book, the BBC version undoubtedly had greater impact in the starkness of its production. I haven’t seen that one in years but this one isn’t a bad effort by any means.
Next up? Wirral?
Council about to go bankrupt while Wirral manages the Merseyside Pension Fund which has refused to divest from murder weapons.
More probable than possible.
Perhaps our absent and esteemed friend @wirralinittogether could enlighten us…
PS Reeves. First reference to this nasty character in literature was by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales:
A reeve is the manager of a landowner’s estate. Chaucer’s Reeve is a shrewd man who meticulously guards his master’s assets so that he may profit from them himself. The young landowner he serves is so clueless as to the workings of his own estate that he often borrows from the Reeve, not realizing that he borrows his own property. The Reeve’s description in the General Prologue highlights how he disrupts Medieval social hierarchy. He appears to have traits of all three estates: the church, the nobility, and the laypeople. The Narrator mentions that he looks like a member of the clergy, with his hair like a priest and his long coat tucked up like a friar. In addition, he is the de facto owner of his master’s resources and carries a rusty blade, a corroded version of the swords typically carried by knights and squires (i.e., the nobility). Finally, he’s also a carpenter by trade, a working man. These contradictions emphasize the curious social mobility the Reeve has, being technically rich but never gentry.
Just about everything there also describes keef the smarmer.