A fair pay commission for public servants promises a wider impact

Will Hutton wrote a couple of months ago in The Observe r that the British “are suddenly discovering a truth that was buried in the New Labour boom years: that fairness matters”. Fairness was a key theme of Labour’s 2010 election campaign, of course. It was splashed over the cover of its manifesto and supported by the party's commitment to the 50 per cent top rate of income tax for high earners that has just come in, and to the restriction from April 2011 of pensions tax relief to the basic rate for people earning over £180,000.