Mayor: Gold-plated public sector pensions are unaffordable

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The Mayor said it was "too much" to expect taxpayers to fund generous schemes when they themselves were hit by the economic downturn. He added that with pension funds devalued by falling markets and the elderly living longer in retirement the cost to the council taxpayer was simply too great.

However, the Mayor is certain to be criticised for his remarks since most public sector employees - including thousands of staff at Transport for London and in the Metropolitan Police - do not earn large salaries.

Mr Johnson opened himself up to charges of hypocrisy as he himself is due a generous parliamentary pension for his seven years as an MP as well as a scheme for the Mayor of London - both to be paid for out of the public purse.

Mr Johnson conceded as much in his Daily Telegraph column and said: "Speaking as a former MP and current Mayor, I hesitate to knock it, and I only do so because it is unsustainable.

"With firms now laying off staff in their thousands, with unemployment apparently set to hit three million for the first time since the Eighties, it is simply too much to expect council-tax payers to scrimp and save to pay for the pensions of local government's colossal clerisy.

"The second, and more serious, reason for believing the position to be unsustainable is that these public sector pensions are now, frankly, unaffordable. Human longevity is demolishing the actuarial calculations on which our pensions are based."

He blamed the "division" between private and public pensions on Gordon Brown's "reshaping" of the economy during his 10 years as Chancellor.

He said Mr Brown's "great pensions raid" had made it difficult for private firms to keep up final salary schemes while the public sector, meanwhile had become "massively swollen".

He concluded: "That's why the public pension funds have their great yawning deficits, and we can either cover those deficits with massive tax increases, or else we can reform."

Labour's John Biggs, chair of the Assembly budget committee, said: "Most public sector workers are in fact on quite modest wages I can't on the face of it see why the public sector should be punished for the failures of City bankers."