The Labour Government

The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
He’s triggered me since the day I heard him interviewed on the radio.
Struggle to understand why people born without a pot to piss in, then become the absolute greedy fuckers they and their family would have despised, growing up.
Sold his business for £145M! Seems like his boys still own 10% and hold senior positions, so they’ll be ok, whatever the old fucker does with his money..

Donated £70k to the Tory party and became ‘business advisor’ to Cameron and Osborne. I did him one disservice though, he was a full on opponent of Brexit, so he then donated money to the LD party. He’s now a fully paid up member of Reform PLC so he might well now be a Brexit supporter!
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Sounds like he’s absolutely mad for the gear.
 
Kirkstall Blue said:
Sorry I’m behind the thread, Reeves has misjudged the mood, the large majority of pensioners are just above the pension credit limit. So won’t be able to claim extra benefit.
The part that annoys me is treating the state pension as a benefit when it’s been paid for by workers or people who paid their N.I. stamp WFP was because the cost of heating.
If they are serious they would realise that when people get old they need the heat on so more heart attacks, hypothermia ending up in hospital.
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Sorry, you're way behind everything. The large majority of pensioners are well above the pension credit threshold (though that may depend on what "just above" means).

The big problem is that we paid N.I. to fund the pensions of pensioners then, not our own pensions in the future (which now is now, and funded by current taxes).

Without replicating the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, most pensioners now were brought up in houses without central heating, in colder winters than now and waking up with ice on the inside of the single-glazed windows. More seriously, pension credit is demonstrably the best way to deal with pensioner poverty (with commensurate savings in health costs), and raising the pension credit threshold would be a much better use of money than giving it to the majority of pensioners who don't need it - it might even pay for itself in saved NHS costs, so I'm not sure why that could not have been a sweetener for this awkward policy.

(And no truck for the people on here who would not give pension credit to anyone who hasn't "paid in".)
 
bluethrunthru said:
incorrect - the workforce today pays tax and NI through the front door and their money goes out the back door to pay todays pension. The "stamp" element is your contributions that establish the amount of your pension. If you pay tax today its paying your next door neighbours state pension on Thursday - thats why the ratio to working people paying tax and wealthy people stumping up their tax is important because there is no element of investment in the state pension.
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If that were true, and there we no connection between you contributing NI and your pension benefit, then why do you have to contribute 10 years of NI to qualify for any state pension and 35 to qualify for it all? That that correlation exists creates a contract.

The fact the government pay for current pensions out of current taxes is “just in time” financial planning on their part.
 
Dave Ewing's Back 'eader said:
Yeah, and I expect to live to be 104 years plus so that I get my money back!
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You probably got your money back in the first ten years of getting your pension.

It's one of those conundrums. The budget for pensions was originally based on the assumption that you might survive two or three years after retirement. Pensions meant people missed out on the poverty that killed them. Better health (e.g. from immunisation) increased life expectancy, then the NHS revolutionised what we could expect in old age. Medical improvements have done the same, and trauma surgery means we can survive stuff that would have killed us - though sometimes with extra costs to cover disability.

We simply can't rely on the younger generation to keep us in a manner to which we weren't even accustomed when we were working.
 
Brewster's millions said:
The surprise isn’t that Labour are doing what they’re doing; although few would have expected them to do anything as idiotic as scrapping the winter fuel allowance.

The surprise is that Labour were allowed to get away with a manifesto and a narrative during the election campaign which were clearly works of fiction. The non-dom tax and VAT on school fees were going to pay for it all, all the while being committed to balancing the current budget and dishing out bumper pay rises to keep the unions happy. Pure fantasy.

I suspect that over the next year or two, even the biggest stooges on here will admit how dishonest it all was. Though not for a while yet, of course.

Meanwhile Starmer really is in trouble with this fuel calamity and the unions have put him into a very difficult corner now.
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Dishonest ??? Starmer is 4th division stuff when compared to the PL dishonesty of the Story Party. He has inherited a shit show that will take some sorting and for that he needs time, patience and some latitude. The Stories had maxed out on every credit card they had….someone has to pay and it will be painful for the foreseeable…time for us all to take a reality check.
 
bluethrunthru said:
incorrect - the workforce today pays tax and NI through the front door and their money goes out the back door to pay todays pension. The "stamp" element is your contributions that establish the amount of your pension. If you pay tax today its paying your next door neighbours state pension on Thursday - thats why the ratio to working people paying tax and wealthy people stumping up their tax is important because there is no element of investment in the state pension.
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Was it Brown who decided to raid the pension fund and combine it into general taxation that’s when he changed the name into a benefit.
Even pensioners pay tax the chancellor hopes they won’t be around or very few by the next election
 
Kirkstall Blue said:
Was it Brown who decided to raid the pension fund and combine it into general taxation that’s when he changed the name into a benefit.
Even pensioners pay tax the chancellor hopes they won’t be around or very few by the next election
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TBH not sure but whether its Blue or Red we work longer for the shittest pension in Europe
 
Vic said:
Sorry, you're way behind everything. The large majority of pensioners are well above the pension credit threshold (though that may depend on what "just above" means).

The big problem is that we paid N.I. to fund the pensions of pensioners then, not our own pensions in the future (which now is now, and funded by current taxes).

Without replicating the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, most pensioners now were brought up in houses without central heating, in colder winters than now and waking up with ice on the inside of the single-glazed windows. More seriously, pension credit is demonstrably the best way to deal with pensioner poverty (with commensurate savings in health costs), and raising the pension credit threshold would be a much better use of money than giving it to the majority of pensioners who don't need it - it might even pay for itself in saved NHS costs, so I'm not sure why that could not have been a sweetener for this awkward policy.

(And no truck for the people on here who would not give pension credit to anyone who hasn't "paid in".)
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Age Concern said they believed two million pensioners would struggle to pay their bills and heat their homes as a result of the change.

I grew up in a house where they’d be ice on the inside. I suspect many of us did. Older people need to keep warmer than we did as kids. I also remember the hyperthermia adverts they used to do on TV.
 
I remember hypothermia adverts that’s why it should be a staged withdrawal of the payment, so easy to work out a way to do that eg: reducing it by £25 every year and reversing the price hikes the Electricity and Gas boards put on consumers, the reason for the WFP in the first place
 
Kirkstall Blue said:
Was it Brown who decided to raid the pension fund and combine it into general taxation that’s when he changed the name into a benefit.
Even pensioners pay tax the chancellor hopes they won’t be around or very few by the next election
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You're confusing two different things. Brown's pension raid was the removal of tax relief on dividends paid into a pension pot.

Nothing to do with state pension.
 
Kirkstall Blue said:
I remember hypothermia adverts that’s why it should be a staged withdrawal of the payment, so easy to work out a way to do that eg: reducing it by £25 every year and reversing the price hikes the Electricity and Gas boards put on consumers, the reason for the WFP in the first place
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WFP was introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997, same budget as the pension raid.

Gas boards were abolished in 1972.
 
Vic said:
Sorry, you're way behind everything. The large majority of pensioners are well above the pension credit threshold (though that may depend on what "just above" means).

The big problem is that we paid N.I. to fund the pensions of pensioners then, not our own pensions in the future (which now is now, and funded by current taxes).

Without replicating the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, most pensioners now were brought up in houses without central heating, in colder winters than now and waking up with ice on the inside of the single-glazed windows. More seriously, pension credit is demonstrably the best way to deal with pensioner poverty (with commensurate savings in health costs), and raising the pension credit threshold would be a much better use of money than giving it to the majority of pensioners who don't need it - it might even pay for itself in saved NHS costs, so I'm not sure why that could not have been a sweetener for this awkward policy.

(And no truck for the people on here who would not give pension credit to anyone who hasn't "paid in".)
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The national minimum wage is around £10k PA more than the State Pension.
Every recipient of the full state pension who has paid into a state pension for 35 years has to earn a bit more than the state pension in other income to be above the minimum wage.
Yet every pensioner in this bracket will lose the winter fuel allowance - though some will be able to claim some additional pension credits - though many will be too proud to even try.
The Labour Party predicted 4000 deaths in 2017 for a proposed measure that merely taxed the Winter Fuel Allowance payment.
What's changed?
 
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