Public sector pay.

Much in the news again at the moment. Let's be quite clear - a below-inflation pay rise is a pay cut. No ifs or buts - money is only as valuable as what it can buy. If you can't buy as much with this year's wages as you could with last year's, then your effective pay-wealth has fallen. No amount of weasel words can alter the reality. Public sector workers have every right to be angry about the way their real pay has been eroded in this way. Particularly as their pay is decided by the Government, and to the extent that anybody controls inflation, it is that same Government that does so. I am now in the relatively comfortable position of being a pensioner, and of having my pension at least nominally inflation-proofed, but I do feel on behalf of those who are finding that the pound in their pocket buys less and less, while their employer not only refuses to do anything about it, but lectures them on the need for fiscal responsibility into the bargain.