Darling pay freeze: right idea, wrong timing |

Tuesday 6th October 2009 | 12:05

Darling pay freeze: right idea, wrong timing

A pay freeze on some of the best paid public servants is seen as a good idea - but insiders are not convinced that the timing of the announcement will benefit Labour

There is overwhelming support for the public sector pay freeze announced by Alistair Darling last night within the Westminster political community – but much greater scepticism over whether the timing of the announcement was judicious.

Under the proposals, 40,000 of the most senior civil servants would have their pay frozen in 2010/11, and about 700,000 mid-ranking public servants would get a pay rise of between 0 and 1%.

Eighty one per cent of the PoliticsHome Phi100 panel – which includes MPs and peers from all the main parties as well as senior political journalists, party strategists, think tank heads and academics – think that these plans are broadly a good idea.

That decisive view is shared across the political spectrum.

But just nine per cent of the insider panel predict that the announcement will succeed in distracting the focus from the Conservatives and George Osborne’s set piece speech.

A much larger proportion of the panel (forty one per cent) think that the announcement will backfire and be seen as desperate.

Forty eight per cent think it will have neither effect.

Everyone’s a winner

A non-aligned media panellist said that Labour ‘should have told it to their own party last week.’

Another panellist said that the proposal ‘could actually work in the Conservatives' favour - proof that life really is going to get tougher.’

A Lib Dem MP said: ‘Both parties have an interest in making the austerity issue bi-partisan, and both are winners.’

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