cuts a year earlier than anyone else, with little or no pretence of any consultation with the unions. The confrontation had underlined the huge levels of ignorance among public sector staff over their existing pension rights.
The threatened increase in pension age was shrewdly targeted to have most impact not on workers about to retire in the next few years, who tend to be the most concerned about pensions, but younger staff joining the public services from 2006, or those aged under 52 and expecting to retire after 2013.
Increasing the retirement age for full pension to 65 and raising the minimum early retirement age is the equivalent of slashing a third of the value of the existing scheme: it would save huge sums of money since many public sector workers would be unable to work the extra five years, and many more would die relatively soon after retirement.
Alternative ways in which Blair might seek to force public sector staff to pay for the long-term cash crisis could include forcing substantial increases in the employees' contribution.
Whatever ideas New Labour brings forward, they are unlikely to improve the lot of public sector workers, who face a barrage of attacks including the hunt for £22 billion of savings from "bureaucracy", privatisation and market-style reforms under a third term.