EMAG AGM 22nd Oct. 2008

The EMAG AGM was well attended and efficiently run. I'm impressed that they have added 7,000 new members since the PO's Report. Concensus was that although we have won a moral victory with the PO and the European Parliament, the chances of the British Government agreeing to compensation are slim. Opinion is divided on whether the financial meltdown improves our chances or not; it has created many precedents, but it has also strained public finances, possibly to the limit

EMAG has an impressive programme of opening regional groups to put pressure on local MPs and prospective candidates. And it may come to a judicial review, as with the occupational pensioners who eventually won

Even if a compensation scheme is agreed, it will be extraordinarily difficult to design. Ther was no fraud at Equitable, just management failure that the regulators should exposed and stopped. This created winners as well as losers. I was both! I benefited in the build-up of my pension fund and lost out as an annuitant after I'd taken my pension. If only I had used the open market option to go elsewhere - but Equitable was the best buy on the open market at the time!

In the long run, as Keynes said, we are all dead. Equitable pensioners are dying at the rate of 15 a day, 30,000 since the society closed to new business. But there's 450,000 of us still alive and kicking