Oooer. Not sure El Gordo will be happy with this:

The national debt could swell to well over £1,000bn if
the Government goes ahead with a plan to incorporate the huge public
sector pensions liability in its accounts.

The
proposal, which is presently under consideration, would obliterate one
of Gordon Brown’s key borrowing rules – that public sector debt cannot
exceed 40pc of gross domestic product – as it would push the debt to
almost 100pc of GDP.

It won’t change how much is owed one jot or tittle, just what we call it. Still, seems worthwhile, putting the state accounts on a rational basis.

Mr Weale said: "My preferred arrangement would be to make it illegal to remunerate people except through their pay packet.

"That
would be completely transparent and people in the public sector would
be able to see whether they really are better or worse paid than in the
private sector.

"At the moment there’s this
strange notion that employees contributions are paid out of a company’s
profits. That seems unlikely – it almost certainly comes out of the
wages."

Indeed, as with so called "employers’ NI" contributions. At least some if not all of it comes out of the wage packets, not the profits.