"All in this together?" Prove it!

David Cameron has been keen to point out that "we're all in this together" as the UK struggles with tough economic times and a possible new financial crisis, but he's been finding it hard to convince anybody.  Here are just a few recent reasons for the public's scepticism:

* Signs of restraint in the City bonus culture are still few and far between. Goldman Sachs is set to pay its employees an average of £238,000 each (and it's important to recall that secretaries' and messengers' remuneration is included in that number).  Meanwhile, despite the outcry from the public and politicians,  it looks as if banks' annual reports will not fully disclose details of top executives' pay.

* NHS doctors are threatening to strike over government attempts to reform their pension scheme, under which they can currently retire at 60 with a fully-indexed pension worth an average of £48,000 per year.

* And the Queen is apparently exempt from austerity too, with Cameron reportedly supporting a crackpot scheme to buy her a new yacht as a way of marking her Diamond Jubilee this year -- but only as long as no public money is involved.  Except public money will be involved, won't it, Dave?  Private sector donors to this wildly inappropriate idea will no doubt claim a tax deduction.

There are signs that Cameron is realising that the message isn't getting across. Following on from his recent comments to Andrew Marr on the BBC about excessive executive pay (see my post of 9 January, "Crony baloney"), the Government will introduce specific proposals for reform and transparency next week. Business lobbyists are already getting set to man the torpedoes. And today Cameron has talked about the need for a kinder and gentler capitalism in order to maintain public support for a free market economy.

He's facing an uphill battle there. Employment data for November show that the unemployment rate has risen to 8.4%, a 15-year high, with public sector job losses far outpacing the meagre crop of new jobs in the private sector. You have to think that the coalition government would be riding a whole lot lower in the opinion polls, were it not for the unfathomably ineffective performance of Ed Miliband.