The Labour Government

M18CTID said:
Oh, so you're not disputing that Farage and certain media outlets are gaslighting the general public then? And given that Reform are leading in the polls, he is absolutely correct to call out Farage's and Reform's bullshit divisive policies. They've been landing free hits all summer and getting no pushback from anywhere. It's about time the spotlight was turned on Farage and Reform and Starmer should've done it a fucking long time ago.

By the way, his presentation was fine the other day when giving that speech. He's not always a great communicator but he nailed it on that occasion.
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Should have just discredited his concern by typing “cool story, bro” or “of course you did, pmsl”.
 
hampshireblue said:
You're right that it's all conjecture at present and any changes will take some time to implement. It's important that nobody makes any changes in advance of it being formally announced.
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Yep - any changes will surely have a grace period before being implemented. As you say, it's important that nobody reacts to anything in advance. Sadly, some have already. We've got one clown at work who has. Daily Mail reader who has fallen for the line that Reeves is coming after his pension. His pot was only around £100,000 and earlier in the year he took his 25% lump sum and spunked the lot on a brand new car. I'm not sure why he couldn't just spend £10,000 on one and stash the other £15,000 into a decent savings account or ISA as he's not exactly flush. Not only that, he used the other £75,000 to buy an annuity that is only paying £400 a month. I mean, since pension freedoms came in, who the fuck buys an annuity these days?! If the dozy **** wanted to access his pension, surely going into drawdown would be better.

I've no idea who he's taken advice off but surely it can't be an IFA, and in any case any government changes probably won't affect anyone with a pension pot as low as his.
 
M18CTID said:
Yep - any changes will surely have a grace period before being implemented. As you say, it's important that nobody reacts to anything in advance. Sadly, some have already. We've got one clown at work who has. Daily Mail reader who has fallen for the line that Reeves is coming after his pension. His pot was only around £100,000 and earlier in the year he took his 25% lump sum and spunked the lot on a brand new car. I'm not sure why he couldn't just spend £10,000 on one and stash the other £15,000 into a decent savings account or ISA as he's not exactly flush. Not only that, he used the other £75,000 to buy an annuity that is only paying £400 a month. I mean, since pension freedoms came in, who the fuck buys an annuity these days?! If the dozy **** wanted to access his pension, surely going into drawdown would be better.

I've no idea who he's taken advice off but surely it can't be an IFA, and in any case any government changes probably won't affect anyone with a pension pot as low as his.
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Sounds a bit mad to me. I do know that annuitues have come back into favour for those that want a guaranteed income as rates are around the 7.5% mark( your mate hasn't even got near that figure though). I have given a bit of thought to using, say about a third of my pension to get one to give an income whilst leaving the other two thirds to grow. I probably won't in the foreseeable but in a few years, who knows?

I hope an IFA didn't give advice to do that, but some people are always tempted short term without really thinking or understanding the repercussions. Even a moderately cautious portfolio is getting around 9%pa.
 
M18CTID said:
Oh, so you're not disputing that Farage and certain media outlets are gaslighting the general public then? And given that Reform are leading in the polls, he is absolutely correct to call out Farage's and Reform's bullshit divisive policies. They've been landing free hits all summer and getting no pushback from anywhere. It's about time the spotlight was turned on Farage and Reform and Starmer should've done it a fucking long time ago.

By the way, his presentation was fine the other day when giving that speech. He's not always a great communicator but he nailed it on that occasion.
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Your view I accept that.
 
M18CTID said:
Yep - any changes will surely have a grace period before being implemented. As you say, it's important that nobody reacts to anything in advance. Sadly, some have already. We've got one clown at work who has. Daily Mail reader who has fallen for the line that Reeves is coming after his pension. His pot was only around £100,000 and earlier in the year he took his 25% lump sum and spunked the lot on a brand new car. I'm not sure why he couldn't just spend £10,000 on one and stash the other £15,000 into a decent savings account or ISA as he's not exactly flush. Not only that, he used the other £75,000 to buy an annuity that is only paying £400 a month. I mean, since pension freedoms came in, who the fuck buys an annuity these days?! If the dozy **** wanted to access his pension, surely going into drawdown would be better.

I've no idea who he's taken advice off but surely it can't be an IFA, and in any case any government changes probably won't affect anyone with a pension pot as low as his.
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You don't need an IFA. Pension Wise will explain the options.

 
M18CTID said:
I mean, since pension freedoms came in, who the fuck buys an annuity these days?
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People who retire early and want to derisk a percentage of their income until they can draw their state pension ? Yes there are other ways and probably better long term e.g. Bond Ladders but they are more complicated to set up and you need a big chunk to get the required returns.
 
hampshireblue said:
Sounds a bit mad to me. I do know that annuitues have come back into favour for those that want a guaranteed income as rates are around the 7.5% mark( your mate hasn't even got near that figure though). I have given a bit of thought to using, say about a third of my pension to get one to give an income whilst leaving the other two thirds to grow. I probably won't in the foreseeable but in a few years, who knows?

I hope an IFA didn't give advice to do that, but some people are always tempted short term without really thinking or understanding the repercussions. Even a moderately cautious portfolio is getting around 9%pa.
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Yeah, I think using part of your pot to buy an annuity isn't too bad an option but spunking your whole pot on one is an odd decision IMO. I'm guessing it's more likely he got his advice off some bloke down the pub than an IFA! He's clearly been scaremongered into taking his pot by certain media outlets though. Granted, he's 67 now and drawing his state pension too so nothing wrong with wanting to start accessing his pot regardless of any government changes but I think the decisions he's made are not the best. Maybe he sees that extra £400 a month on top of his state pension and on top of his weekly wage - he works two and a half days a week now - as being more than enough for his lifestyle, but he made the point just the other week that he's used all his accrued holidays for the year and any subsequent ones he now takes will be unpaid so I think he's still a bit short of where he wants to be. Maybe he shouldn't have spent £25,000 on a car if that's the case!
 
Kompany Car said:
People who retire early and want to derisk a percentage of their income until they can draw their state pension ? Yes there are other ways and probably better long term e.g. Bond Ladders but they are more complicated to set up and you need a big chunk to get the required returns.
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Fair point. He's already drawing his state pension though!
 
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threespires said:
From what I've read it seems GB News had a lot of access at the conference and Labour seemed to be trying to engage with them? I assume the argument is that they need to reach the people who watch it? Strikes me as incredibly naive and politically inept as (not withstanding GBNs claims about it's increasing profile as a news brand) that seems to overlook it's role as a propaganda outlet rather than a news channel. Have I missed some clever strategy here?
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It does have some logic to it.

If Labour are going to copy Reform’s policies on immigration, then they may as well use Reform’s propaganda channels as well. Labour voters who watch GB News (there’s loads of them), and who are considering switching to Reform, will know they don’t need to.

Obviously it won’t work quite so well if Starmer were to accuse people of jumping on a far right bandwagon if they want a national inquiry on grooming gangs, or if they’re simply concerned about immigration, but he tends not to say that sort of stuff anymore.
 
hampshireblue said:
It's quite amazing that 24 hours after the Mone verdict, none of the usual suspects on here who, just a few weeks ago were full of bile, outrage and hate for Angela Rayner, apparently have no view on what Mone did or what the outcome should be. I wonder why?
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It was only 122 million £. Chickenfeed for what passes as Tory fecklessness.
 
In relation to the budget I think they are likely to go with the Resolution Foundation's suggestion of reducing NI by 2% and put 2% on income tax. By doing so they will raise £6Bn more but keep their promises on not increasing taxes on working people.
 
hampshireblue said:
It's quite amazing that 24 hours after the Mone verdict, none of the usual suspects on here who, just a few weeks ago were full of bile, outrage and hate for Angela Rayner, apparently have no view on what Mone did or what the outcome should be. I wonder why?
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To be fair I think most people were already agreed that Mone and the rest of them who made money from substandard PPE were already criminals and should be dealt with. She should certainly be stripped of her peerage and made to repay and I would suggest there wont be many who would disagree with that course of long overdue action.

With Rayner it was more subjective around what she did and what the consequences should be, was it a case of an apology and paying the money or did it impact her integrity as secretary of state and deputy leader.
 
Kompany Car said:
In relation to the budget I think they are likely to go with the Resolution Foundation's suggestion of reducing NI by 2% and put 2% on income tax. By doing so they will raise £6Bn more but keep their promises on not increasing taxes on working people.
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The numbers are about £10bn, it’ll raise about £20bn and the NI drop will costs about £10bn. Someone on £75k will be £500 worse off, so they are either not defined by this government as “working people” or their promise is broken.
 
M18CTID said:
He's not inferred that at all. He's attacked Farage and Reform's utterly disgraceful plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain, but he hasn't labelled Reform voters themselves as racists. All he's said to them is not to fall for Farage's bullshit like many did over Brexit, and that many of those who plan to vote Reform will get fucked over by Farage if he gets in. Starmer most certainly isn't saying you can't have genuine concerns about immigration and anyone thinking that he has said that has probably been gaslit by the likes of the Daily Mail, GB News, and Farage himself
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Why is abolishing indefinite leave to remain disgraceful? The US, for example, runs a green card scheme that you can get twice then you have to become a citizen or leave, means you get about 25 years in US to decide if you like the place. if the government came up with something like that I doubt people would think it disgraceful, obviously the caveat being you need to make it not apply to people already granted that right to remain.
 
metalblue said:
Why is abolishing indefinite leave to remain disgraceful? The US, for example, runs a green card scheme that you can get twice then you have to become a citizen or leave, means you get about 25 years in US to decide if you like the place. if the government came up with something like that I doubt people would think it disgraceful, obviously the caveat being you need to make it not apply to people already granted that right to remain.
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Maybe it's because I don't believe Reform would substitute it with something like you've suggested as I don't trust them to do something that could be considered fair and balanced.

That said, I suppose it is possible that if they did get in they'd water down a lot of their rhetoric and proposed policies when they realise that they're both unpopular and unworkable.
 
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