Fidelty donations to Tory Party

Across at LabourHome they are getting exercised about Fidelty Asset Management giving money to the Tories: Why should my pension scheme fund the Tories?

I've followed a few of the links and can't get to the bottom of whether Fidelity paid the money out of profits or directly from the pension funds. If the former then I suppose they have a fair point, but I suspect that would be illegal and the money came from profits, in which case so what.

It also appears that some of them want their pension funds moving because of these donations and maybe in to ethical funds and there is also a debate about whether councils have a conflict if they are investing their money through Fidelity; if there is I am sure councillors would recuse themselves, there are, after all, very strict rules for councillors.

They all seem to miss the point that the trustees have one simple duty, to get the best possible return possible for their pensioners and works who invest, anything else would be a dereliction of duty, surely? Well not really because here we are talking about final salary schemes and if they don't get a good return it doesn't matter because we, the beleaguered tax payers will have to fund the difference.

So now we have another reason for ending these schemes, it will force further discipline on socialists who think that pension funds are only for "ethical" investments and don't have to make the best return possible.