Will the strike change anything?
The much anticipated day of action is upon us, and am I the only one who still isn't clear what the aim is?
I sympathise with public sector workers. The raid on their pension pot was always going to be done by a gleeful Tory party who won't be touching the Christmas bonuses of the top earning private sector bosses this year.
But the wider issue of expectations, pensions and lifespan still exists.
As we live longer, our pensions have to be stretched out over many more years. Often the end of those years is spent requiring expensive care in homes.
As the baby boomers approach retirement, their own offspring (I count myself in this) are less in number and saddled with large mortgages and student debts.
We are going to have to work harder, for less, for longer to sustain our post-working life, which may add up to around a third of our entire lives if life expectations continue to rise, and we don't toil ourselves into a early grave - maybe that's the plan!?
Today's strikes will highlight a frustration with the government, but won't force a policy change.
For that, we must look at the make-up of our society now, and start to think seriously about how we are going to afford to keep ourselves for the next 50 years.
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David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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Look at the 3 year pay freeze of local governement workers and the new 1 % cap for 2 more years and the rate of inflation and you get a drop of 20 % in wages.
The public sector pension is based on final salary and as this salary has dropped by 20 %, then they have already achieved a 20 % cut in pension payments without actually doing anything extra.
While the strike may not directly change anything, it may stop things getting worse.
If there had been no recation then as sure as eggs are eggs, we would have more words like affordable and fair being put out followed by actual public sector pay cuts.
Cameron today said he had taken a million peoople out of tax. I wondeer if he included the 3/4 million sacked public sector in that figure.
The strange thing about the 3 % extra pension payments is that the government did not need to go for it. Just take the next pay rise whenever that is and replace it with a freeze or another 2 years capped at 1 % and you would have got exactly the same effect.
May just be that the blame labour is having less effect as time goes on and the blame the Eorozone can not go on for ever so maybe Cameron is going to reduce the 3 % extra pension to 2 % and then put tax up all round and introduce the blame the public sector as the next one.