Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
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Soros funded the Brexit Remain campaign apparently. All part of the WEF agenda to keep Britain slaves to the EU.
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General UK politics VIII - The Last Tory
- Thread starter Andy_Ross
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Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
It'll be Freezing This Christmas - (Mud parody)
Presumably all 1.3 million pensioner households that will still receive a winter fuel allowance will be fine?
Really hate how this has been used as if the poorest pensioners will be affected. My mother has "lost her" winter fuel allowance, she's 83 and because of her health issues she requires the house to be heated all the time. The £300 was nice to have but she is like most and can manage without it. Friends of mine who are a two-person pensioner household with two final salary pensions also just shrugged, easy come, easy go. But time and time again this is presented as the poor pensioners being hit.
Really hate how this has been used as if the poorest pensioners will be affected. My mother has "lost her" winter fuel allowance, she's 83 and because of her health issues she requires the house to be heated all the time. The £300 was nice to have but she is like most and can manage without it. Friends of mine who are a two-person pensioner household with two final salary pensions also just shrugged, easy come, easy go. But time and time again this is presented as the poor pensioners being hit.
Back in April of this year their losses had almost doubled to over £40 million. If they haven't been able to improve their finances during a general election year their model really doesn't make sense - they need more "woke" presenters to encourage people who aren't deplorable to watch their channel...
Exactly, Dad didn't need it. Nor do pensioners who are paying higher rate tax.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
I disagree. Labour viewing the elderly as an easy target disgusts me. I did call out Keir Starmer pre-election as a Blairite (= a tory under the skin) but for him and Rachel Reeves (who presented herself as an economist, when she was a customer support manager at Halifax) to so quickly reveal their true colours is beyond sickening. I have zero respect for either of them now. I never liked Angela Rayner.
Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
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The winter fuel payment was of course a "Blairite" policy, introduced by Blair's government in 1997.
There's an argument to be made that limiting the payment only to pensioners already on means-tested benefits has gone too far and is too restrictive but on average pensioners are much better off now than they were a generation ago and most pensioners simply don't need freebies like this anything like as much as other poorer people need help.
There's an argument to be made that limiting the payment only to pensioners already on means-tested benefits has gone too far and is too restrictive but on average pensioners are much better off now than they were a generation ago and most pensioners simply don't need freebies like this anything like as much as other poorer people need help.
"Easy target"? That's a laugh the boomers are one of the most pandered for and to of all demographics. Plus one does find it amusing that people who were all saying, "well I don't need it so I donate it to charity" (yeah pull the other one it's got an orchestra on it) have all gone quiet. It should always have been means tested.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
IMV it's not to do with how well-off the average pensioner is. It's to do with cynical callousness. Suppose someone stopped you in the street and demanded three hundred pounds you just took out of the cash machine. It doesn't depend on your being rich or poor to resent the attitude that lies behind it. Likewise, the Waspi issue. Labour has shown themselves to be cynical bastards who can't even conjure up a plausible excuse for their street mugging.
Never understood the "WASPI" one, if the retirement age had to change there was always going to be those a day to the side of the cut off. As for them somehow not knowing because they didn't get a letter - you can pull the other leg now - I've attached an orchestra of one-man bands on it!
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Exactly: that's the knee jerk ill-considered claim. The usual ageist misogynist nonsense that passes as 'money-saving'. Boomers worked hard for their money and once a benefit has been granted, such as a pension, child benefit, employment protection laws, to just simply take it away for no real reason is utterly disgusting and if as you say it is based on a prejudice that Boomers are 'all well off' and 'middle class' then that exposes the class envy and disregard towards elderly women in particular that defines the UK. Of course they claim they'll donate it to charity as people of that generation are mostly too proud to admit that hey they are used to their benefits even if they are not actually poverty-stricken.
On most Wednesday mornings I ride with a group of cyclists where (at 57) I skew the demographic significantly downward in age. They were incensed at the loss of the winter fuel payment - presumably because their next bike will have to make do with the Ultegra Di2 groupset rather than DuraAce Di2 or more likely, given the comparatively small sum involved, that they will have to downgrade to Rioja Riserva rather than Gran Riserva for their midweek plonk.
Daddy Don was also in receipt of the winter fuel payment, something that he didn't need. He lived very comfortably off his vocational pension, saved both his UK state pension and US social security payment. IMO giving half as many people £600 (or a quarter £1200) would be a much better use of public funds than giving very comfortably off pensioners money they don't notice - much less need.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Typical unrelated counter-argument: the 'Oh you all wanted equality and now you've got it' cynicism. It is nothing at all to do with 'knowing about it'. As from 1995 it was announced the pension age for women would increase in line with that of men. Of course 90% of the population knew this and nobody is against 'equality for men'. The issue is about the time scale and the lack of notice, when Cameron and Clegg's coalition government decided to 'speed it up' in 2011 so that women expecting to retire at sixty were suddenly blindsided by very short notice. The Ombudsman ruled that there was maladministration so all this issue has been proven and established as a fact. The politics of envy strikes again!
Last time this issue came up on this thread a few years back I was trolled by someone claiming it was about Equality and the condescending attitude that 'women knew about this, so tough luck!' So I am not going to bother arguing about it again as the misogynist attitude is so deeply entrenched in many Brits even today (not all, I hasten to add).
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Boomers claim that they worked hard but they haven't worked any harder than us Generation X'ers and arguably have worked less hard than the Millennials who have to deal with the double whammy of the gig economy (with all that entails in terms of low wages and poor job security) and unaffordable housing (either to rent or buy).
My view is that Boomers are no more entitled not to live in poverty than anyone else. They are a vocal and influential group (thanks in part to their wealth) which means IMO they get a far larger proportion of government resources than their simple numbers would seem that they are entitled to. The money which is currently going to very wealthy boomers (for a comparatively few years) could be instead be used to take children out of poverty and positively affect their lives for decades.
Target benefits to those who need them most and don't bankrupt the country by giving the "triple lock" to retirees like myself whose retirement income is many times the national average working wage.
You need to keep up with current events - suggest you go and read about the current ruckus - it is because they didn't get a letter from the government.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
It is not about 'not receiving a letter' - the issue is that the letter was only sent at extremely short notice. The government acknowledges it should have been sent 28 months in advance as a minimum, as good practice. People plan for retirement, you know. Whilst a few weeks might sound all right to you, it most definitely caused a lot of hardship, inconvenience and grief to a lot of those women in the 'stepped change' sector. This stepped change was structured in the form of women due to reach 60 in say year 2011 would now retire at say 60.5 years, then those due to retire in say 2012, age of retirement now 61, and so on until the last tranche circa 2014 were up to speed of age 64, until everybody was on the same 65 age group (now 66 as from 2019). People like yourself do not understand (or rather, do not care to understand) this issue, hence the affected scepticism and claimed bafflement as to what the problem is. It is just gaslighting and Starmer is doing this large.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
The issue affects Gen X rather than the Boomer generation, who themselves are on the lower band of State Pension.
Your argument is fair enough but the usual method of changing how things work is to pass a law saying 'as from a future Year when the Bill passes', then all those reaching State Pension age AFTER a certain date will stop receiving the Winter Fuel Allowance or whatever small benefit.
Likewise, the Triple Lock is supposed to be set in stone so the correct way to change it is to specify what FUTURE generation will not be guaranteed it, with the guarantee remaining in place for those who already benefit (look up the meaning of 'guarantee').
Pensioners on the same gross income as people in work are better off. For starters, they will not be paying national insurance. Then, they don't have costs associated with working, especially commuting costs. A single parent with a child is in a far worse financial position than a pensioner on the same income, as the single parent has childcare costs and other costs associated with a second mouth. Then if you look at owner-occupier pensioners compared to owner-occupier people of working age, the pensioners are likely to have also paid off their mortgage.
Pensioners are also unlikely to have student loans to pay off.
Then there are discounts that are available to pensioners, regardless of financial situation.