Talk:Ros Altmann, Baroness Altmann

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Initial comment[edit]

I would appreciate any constructive comments JRPG (talk) 21:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Business career[edit]

Not surprisingly, this is the most edited section and two referenced statements from ministers in the HOC contradict Altmann's claim -which came from her website. I've added the DCA announcement, albeit cached, and am seeking advice on how to get a proper copy of the original.

If anyone can provide serious reason to doubt her claim, please provide links and/or see Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute rather than making this section less clear. Also feel free to email me.

JRPG (talk) 19:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the final paragraph relating to the Cabinet Office denial and the Treasury denial. Firstly neither is sourced, secondly they are utterly irrelevant as Altmann never claimed she worked for them. Thirdly the paragraph implies Altmann exaggerates her credentials. This breaches Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and in extreme cases Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy. We need to be a little cautious as Altmann has many friends and enemies and James Purnell who I've met twice is probably in the latter category, though he helped me. I note that had Jack Straw and James P said categorically that she never worked for the no 10 policy unit, they would either have been accused of misleading the house or risked being accused of slander. In any case they could and should have checked their facts. If you wish to change anything please give a reason here and also give a reason for the edit.
JRPG (talk) 19:34, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the FT item as, syntax error apart,

1 ..I couldn't get it to work. I've asked someone to send me a copy if they can.
2 ..How do the recent additions, including the FT item, help a reader? We should be trying to get a coherent article based on agreed facts. That could include a section on criticisms -by named people on specific technical points. I've removed the reference to Jack Straw and James P as I don't think a reference to their mistakes needs appear. Nor do I think they would be pleased if attention was drawn to it.

I've left the reference to the no 10 policy unit as almost all sources refer to it. If I can get proof she wasn't paid, I'll change it to pro bono. JRPG (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I finally managed to read the FT item which was unavailable yesterday. I had considered putting it a new section under criticisms of Altmann. With respect, this is a particularly poor source as much of the criticism is based on the false premise in 2006 that Altmann had overplayed her hand. Similarly, to preserve Wikipedia:Neutral point of view the comments about "sniping serving aides" and "anonymous labour members", whilst just poor journalism, would have to be balanced against a reference to the mistakes in the HOC by Jack Straw and James Purnell. Clarity is best served if the source is ommitted. JRPG (talk) 17:30, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DCA announcement[edit]

I've added the original text of the DCA announcement which confirms Altmann as policy adviser to the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street. This important document is currently cached by Google but may disappear as DCA functions are now carried out by the Ministry of Justice.

National News

Friday 2 July 2004 14:18 Department for Constitutional Affairs (National)

LORD FALCONER APPOINTS CITY CONSULTANT TO STRATEGIC INVESTMENT BOARD

Dr Ros Altmann, an independent investment and pensions policy consultant, has been appointed by the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) to its Strategic Investment Board. The board was set up by the then Lord Chancellor in 2001 to advise on investment of client money that comes under the care of the Public Guardianship Office, the Court of Protection, the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee and the Court Service. Dr Altmann, who takes up her post this week, advised the Myners review of institutional investment in 2001, and is a consultant to the Government. Previously head of equities at Chase Manhattan Bank's international investment operation in London, she has been a director at Rothschild Asset Management and at NatWest Investment Management. In these positions, Dr Altmann worked as a global fund manager, global strategist and international economist. Her non-executive posts include policy adviser to the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street on investment, pensions, savings and annuity policies. She is also a governor and non-executive director of the London School of Economics and chairman of its investment committee. Dr Altmann replaces David Ritchie, who is retiring. Notes to Editors 1. The Strategic Investment Board advises the DCA on its management of money on behalf of clients and ensures that activity is conducted in accordance with best practice. Clients include people with mental incapacity, private trusts and children who receive damages awards. 2. The board is independent and non-executive and comprises a chairman and five members, all drawn from financial services backgrounds, as well as a number of members from within the DCA's business areas. 3. Appointments are for an initial term of three years. The chairman is paid £15,000 a year and appointed members £10,000.

ENDS

JRPG (talk) 19:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Equitable Life[edit]

I'm about to update this, keeping the theme of the original but expanding the section and including substantial referencing. I'm aware of the main article on Equitable but I've concentrated on Altmann's considerable contribution to their campaign. Please feel free to update, with citations.
JRPG (talk) 19:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fan page?[edit]

This article reads as a fan page, rather than a neutral article suitable for Wikipedia. Its tone and partial content is inappropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.239.159.5 (talk) 13:22, 24 September 2009

Really? A description of the lives of successful people often does sound like a fan page. Feel free to add anything critical which is accurate -if you can find it. Don't bother with Purnell and Straw's claim in the HOC that she exaggerated credentials as it has already been shown to be wrong. I think you will struggle to find very much but I will happily add a section of criticisms of her ideas. Could I also suggest you add time and date to postings. JRPG (talk) 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also think the tone is not neutral enough. I have done some tidying, but I still think the article still needs more work to get the tone right. AWhiteC (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly I welcome your changes. This was the first article I wrote and I know most of the people concerned including Ros but am not referenced by any source used or shown in the picture.
As above, I've actually struggled to find critical articles though this may have since changed, feel free to update.
An Independent article said she exaggerated her credentials and would fail to get compensation but was obviously out of date and could be shown to be wrong, i.e. it added nothing to the encyclopaedia.
I also don't like the FT article which refer to "anonymous sources" i.e silly personal attacks, along the same lines used to get backbench support. Water under the bridge now, for which many thanks to Mike O' Brien and Peter Hain. I'd be very interested to read criticisms of her ideas and the campaign.
Regards JRPG (talk) 22:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ros Altmann and her alleged Conservative Party membership[edit]

Short of an official confirmation from either the Conservative Party, or from a member of the Conservative Government cabinet or otherwise a Conservative Government minister, or from Ros Altmann herself, Ros Altmann is not actually officially a member of the Conservative Party and must be presumed as such, and therefore she also cannot be said as a Conservative politician. -- Urquhartnite (talk) 08:13, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. She kept in contact with MPs of all parties, insisting that pensions are long term and must have consensus. I believe that her Labour party membership is part of her efforts to try and keep it that way. I certainly don't expect to see her pictured at fund raising dinners for either the Tories or Labour. JRPG (talk) 09:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification tags May 2015[edit]

Ehrenkater I note you and others made edits in May 2015 asking for clarification of the "pensions industry", "honesty of the older generation" and "countries ..70% of over 50’s in work". I’m quoting directly from the article and don’t know how to provide the information you need. Nor would a list of countries be a useful addition. I’ll help if I can but could you advise on what you expect? Plan B is to attribute the figures to the source. If you’ve changed your mind, do you mind if I remove the tags. Regards JRPG (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Article reads like a "glowing C.V."[edit]

Further to the assertions above, by others (JRPG, 2009, etc.), of the article reading like "a fan page", it still does. I came to this page solely for information, without prejudice, and with all due respect, its tone immediately felt seriously wrong. Its opening paras are replete with adjectives that are indisputably subjective; e.g. whether the outcome of a political or corporate-reloated enterprise is to be regarded as "successful" is in the eye of the beholder. Wikipedia has a clear aim of producing encyclopedic content. Its entries should be regarded as equal to, for example, the Dictionary of National Biography, in neutrality and objectivity, particularly when the subject is an active living politician who asserts contraversial policy positions. Descriptions should neither deprecate nor celebrate the life achievements of such individuals, on whom neutral academic historical reflection has yet to pronounce. All that is demanded is an unequivocal statement of relevant, undisputed historic events. Politicians on the Left or Right may be regarded as heroes or villains to the readership, but clearly, neither position should be reflected in biographical content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trevor H. (talk • contribs) 06:46, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the concerns expressed about tone and style. This article displays a strong sympathetic bias, which invalidates it as a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.251.189 (talk) 09:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further to the immediately preceding para, I refer those with an interest to achieving compliance with the Wikipedia guidelines on biographical entries of living persons, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons) I have not altered the content of the main article today, but suggest those who originated the content might take a close look at the writing, especially regarding tone. Is it unreasonabnle to suggest the picture, too, would be far more suitable for an encyclopedic biographical entry on a living politician were it to reflect a neutral expression and posture? Trevor H. (UK) 07:07, 31 July 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trevor H. (talk • contribs)

I have used the term politician, because clearly, a prosperous individual with clear political sympathies who advises the Prime Minister on national state pension policy, with a recommendation to change the criteria for annual amendment to payments of the State Pension, is surely qualifying the term, by acting in a political role in which, in this case, the individual has recently made recommendations (BBC news, Radio 4, 0700 31.07.16) which reflect an unequivocal political ethos in the broader sense of being minded to shape national policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trevor H. (talk • contribs) 07:22, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing[edit]

While some of the article looks sourced, much of it isn't. This contributes to the impression that the article is full of glowing praise. I've looked at the Pensions theft campaign section. It suggests that Altmann was a key part (as does the Equitable Life campaign section), but there's not much evidence provided. There's far too much about the cases in general and not enough (sourced) on Altmann's role; this article is supposed to be about her. If anyone is interested in supporting the contents of the article with proper sources, then I'll look further at its current state and add more citation needed tags, but it has enough to work on for now. EddieHugh (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote much of this article and its based on BBC, Daily Telegraph and Observer articles, some of which unfortunately have suffered from the dreaded linkrot. FWIW it's regarded as reasonable to combine a description of person's achievements and their bio in a single article.
Eddie, you're also welcome to try and find the archived link which is what I do before adding "citation required."
My userpage has comments on my own involvement which did include about 30 TV interviews, invariably supported by Altmann + full newspaper interviews which I've deliberately omitted and several meetings with ministers. I can assure you she provided the press and political contacts and campaigning advice that the individual leaders of the failed schemes lacked. Following your comments, I will clarify it to say she provided the political leadership.
The campaign 'won' about £3B in compensation and took around 5 years of my time -and obviously a lot more of hers. I also lost money in Equitable life and know the campaign leaders.
The BBC has long recognised her expertise -see this where in the margin she is described as the expert. You may challenge how well I write the article -but no one familiar with the topic will challenge her contribution and she still makes regular appearances on the BBC. Regards JRPG (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation. For an outsider to the subject (such as myself), large parts of the article just look unsourced. "no one familiar with the topic will challenge her contribution", but most readers, I suggest, will not be familiar with it, so they need sources. Most of what I do here is on jazz; there are lots of jazz articles that read well and must have been written by knowledgeable editors, but they have almost no sources cited. I hesitate to change those articles significantly, because I know that they are largely accurate and well written, but I also know that they will need to be re-written and/or properly sourced eventually.
The EL case that you mention (isn't there a separate article for it, given how big an issue it was?) on this page reads like a summary of the whole EL mess, with some comments from Altmann added: that would be fine in a separate article, but it looks like her involvement has been exaggerated (I'm not saying that it has been, but that's how it looks to a casual reader at the moment). Again, like the jazz articles that I mentioned, finding & presenting the sources to the reader must be the eventual solution. EddieHugh (talk) 18:42, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Eddie, I read with amusement your comment about jazz which I know is your area of expertise. As a tone deaf person with poor hearing I rule myself out of commenting!
I think WP:standards have changed in the years since I wrote the article and I probably should have reviewed it. It was the funeral of one of the key organisers Andrew Parr yesterday and this article albeit from the Daily Mail paid tribute to him -see Sad passing of a pensions linchpin half way down. The Times published a large photo of Altmann -taken by my other half -and copied free from Wikipedia(!) -when she became pensions minister. If the main effect of your comments is a better article everyone benefits, sorry if I sounded grumpy. Regards JRPG (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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