It's ok for you, I've got two houses to heat. That's such a blase comment, it has the feel of "I'm alright Jack" to it. Your obsession with wealthy pensioners seems to have made you insensitive to the needs of the less well off pensioner. I feel sorry for the life long Labour voter who's been aching for a change in government. Like a lot of others, maybe not on benefits but not comfortable either. High fuel prices have caused a rise in the cost of living so a government helping hand to get through the winter is most welcome. Or maybe not. Let's face it, the better off pensioner is not going to suffer too much but it's the ones just above needing benefits (and probably more likely to vote Labour) that are going to feel it the most. The clever thing about attacking the old is that those who do survive the freezing winters probably won't remember who they voted for by the time the next election comes around. I see that Jabbo is loitering on the outside looking in. You can't come in yet Jabbs, only another week to go .
Depends what we mean by means testing. Why should someone in a million pound house get money off their heat while a woman in her twenties who can barely pay her rent gets nothing? Where is the line?
Depends. You can be asset rich and cash poor. I knew a couple in London who earned very average salaries but lived in a million pound house because she was an only child and had inherited it from her parents who'd bought it in the 1950s. Another reason might be if a government would have to spend more on means testing than it would save by limiting who gets the payment. I assume the latter is part of the reason why this new limit has been set where it has. If the Tories had done this I expect at least some of the people currently praising the plan would have been up in arms and complaining about austerity killing people.
That's my bad. Though this thread tends to get used more for current affairs which is why I used it. Whenever I go into Dave's thread it's mainly jokes etc.
The winter fuel allowance is a harsh decision, but the older generations have been better isolated from the cost of living issues thus far with the majority of the impact falling on the younger working age population particularly young families, it was going to come to them eventually. Ultimately certain public services being means tested is one of the more viable ways to balance the economy, but not a headline friendly way. Mixed feelings on Reeves announcements yesterday, she will undoubtedly get flack for the winter fuel allowance announcement, with probably the biggest concern being some people who are asset rich, money poor getting caught, but maybe there needs to be more encouragement for people in that category to downsize where possible. There are a lot of 80+ year olds living in family size houses that actually become a danger to them as they become more frail, this is both bad for them and denying a younger family access to the size of home they require. One thing I really welcome is the move towards routing out expensive consultancy from the public sector. Public sector wage increases aimed at improving internal retention may well be a net benefit to the country in the long run. What I don’t like is the language of running the country’s budget like a household, it stinks of Osbourneism. It is a throughly discredited approach to running the country. The austerity era is roundly considered to have been economically illiterate and the cause of many of the issues we face today. Growth relies on investment into key infrastructure and public services, deny that and we will get nowhere regardless. I have some sympathy, we are coming off the back of the worst period of governance the country has seen post war and things won’t improve overnight, hard decisions will need to be made. But Reeves has 5 years to make people feel tangibly better off, if she fails to do that then Reform and the Lib Dem’s will be eating away.
I think the household budget is used because it’s what the average person is more likely to understand. And in an era where politics is much more media driven you can’t really peddle in high minded concepts. Or arguably even mid level ones. Look at some of the things that have managed to be inflicted upon us through simple messaging that eschewed the “experts”. Obviously this language isn’t designed to appeal - but to make it at least somewhat understandable
The other end of the winter fuel allowance that I feel I have to bring up is this: Older people: You can't do anything to damage house values that is my nest egg. Also older people: My nest egg has lots of money in it but please give me money as I am poor.
The ways to release equity from properties are usually pretty much scams though aren’t they? Like ones where the person gets a fraction of the value of their home regardless of how much longer they live and then the company gets the house when they die. I’m sure that’s something different to “equity release”. But I know about it because my grandparents nearly got caught out by that
I find it amusing that Jeremy Hunt is trying to cast doubt on Rachel Reeves’ version of the state of the economy, when he has seemingly admitted that had the Tories managed to get back into power, they wouldn’t have had the money to deliver the tax cuts their election campaign was built on.
It is the hypocrisy of it. We can't make life cheaper for young people as old people need their houses to feel secure. But when old people feel insecure, they can't use the value of their houses and we have to fund their heat. You can't have it both ways.
Rachel Reeves had rented accommodation last year. She claimed around £17,000 expenses to pay for rent, phone & internet, council tax, water and energy bills. The tax payer stumped up around £1500 to cover her energy bills. Obviously quite a lot of that can be justified as work related but maybe it ought to be means tested.
Absolutely impoverished, vulnerable people should be helped by the state. 18% of pensioners count as being in poverty. That's over 2 million pensioners living in poverty. I 100% agree that those who can afford it should be helping with their winter fuel allowance. But there are 33% of people under 18 living in poverty. Nobody has offered to pay their fuel bills. Cost of living and rising rents are driving more and more families into poverty. I am not really interested in this boohoo, retired people don't want to sell their £400,000 nest eggs and downsize nonsense. My parents got their home for £60k in the 90s - just over twice my dad's salary at the time. From that point on they could afford a good life and to save a decent amount too. Now people are forced to live in rented homes at 50% of their salary or more and even when they buy they are buying at 7-8 times their salary. I am sorry, but let's stop pretending that asset protection is caring for the elderly. Most old people just want the young to have a future - and would sacrifice a bit to help even the living load.
Not sure that's entirely true. In my experience, most older people talk about wanting the young to have a future etc, but what they actually mean are their own young, their family. They don't mean the Young as a cohort, and certainly wouldn't sell the old vicarage so that some strangers might have a better life. Totally agree with the rest of the post
Yeah well done Emliy Maitlis..........same Emily Maitlis that was defending Huw Edwards and criticising the media (including the BBC) handling of what was a "non criminal issue." Bravo Emily. Such a good judge of character. And great to see that Labour have not taken too long to roll back on their promises to lay the foundations for more tax etc. and forget their criticisms of nepotism to dump out their shadow cabinet and replace them with the sons, daughters, husbands of their mates. Quite the family going on there. And boo-hiss the people of Lincoln that rendered my vote for Darth Vader Dustbin head irrelevant as my 25 metre trek to the polling station was all for nothing I have no words (for once.) Oh and I did read back quite a lot. the one about "black journalist thrown out of Reform press conference" was especially funny. Femi? journalist. lol. Femi has bee booted out of all sorts of press conferences because he's an activist not a journalist. He doesn;t sit there and ask 1 question. One day 1 question will be back to meaning 1 question and not 3 "ands" but I guess that would require "and another thing" Beth Rigby to hang up her boots first. Femi is a very left, Corbynite, Novarra media type and most of his output is more about him in reality than the subject. Fancies a bit of the capitalist success Owen Jones' has had by being a professional activist. Femi was thrown out because he was Femi. Owen Jones. Oooh..........along with Maitlis on record defending Huw Edwards for his "non crime." "ITS ALL GONE QUIET OVER THER, ITS ALL GONE QUIET OVER THERE." At least Saints got their man in though. Is NorFuck in Hampshire. tbh no idea where it is being a 6 fingered Linkisheer chap but congrats to you all Boy done good an all that. Then on to the Tories? Someone above warbling on about Cleverley not running for leader because of his family? He was always going to run. He will every opportunity. But he is terrible. watch one interview! I did say Kemi would have won with the members if the MPs had not got rid of her in the final 2 and I suggest she will this time.....IF the MPs let her get to the final 2 which is not a dead cert because they prefer to trade their votes with people who might scratch their backs than someone who would tell most of them to their face to fek awf. She will lead the members vote for sure. The MPs will get her out probably for Jenrick (read his backstory lots of "local" back hander nuggets for you there) and Cleverley. Not sad to hear Suella's sob story about no one likes her so she's not running. pity she didn;t get kicked out by the voters but at least she's shot her bolt in terms of front bench opportunities for the foreseeable. And yay Priti is back in the picture (not a chance for leader) we get to see the sexy secretary look a bit more phwoarrr. Its funny that the Conservatives are finally having to admit that if they want conservatism they might have to vote for the "Nigerian" born female! I will leave it there as I don't think you can handle too much humour but I am available for bookings in exchange for a signed pair of Farage's best brogues.
Why are you talking about Rishi Sunak? He's not in power any more, didn't you hear, we've had a general election? I think it's you who should try harder to be relevant. If you're confused now, what are you going to be like when you've got no heating? please log in to view this image
The police officer is definitely in the wrong here no question.........but the whole "we'll ignore what happened before", decide it was racially aggravated and ignore any of what happened before is troubling but unfortunately pretty typical in this era of snippet vids and out of context soundbites that this political class (including all the periphery of political narrative driven media) follow these days. Even the main news these days is more like social media crap! Newsnight once the flagship of serious news, and once one of my favourite watches is now the epitome of garbage snippet analysis but at least they have the gorgeous Salma Shah on their quite often (yes I still watch the programme despite its plummet to the depths.) At least we have moonlight and love and romance around because for sure there is some trouble brewing........both in terms of the Blairites showing their true right wing economics early on and the bunfight between a handful of Tories vying to be leader of themselves while the media consensus still focuses on reform being a threat to the Tories (nope the Tories are a threat to the Tories) ignoring that Reform were second in a lot of those Labour seats! And then we have the US election to look forward to. Camilla sounds quite royal so I'll go for her to win. It will all depend of course on how many more endorsements from the luvvies and the great and good she can get and whether she can carry it through the next 4 months without a repeat of her last attempt at getting the nomination when she was first out on nil points from her own tribe (democrats I mean not a racist reference there.) In reality its the Orange Man's to lose because the US is a pretty ****ed up country full of religious types, straw chewers and heavy industry lovers on one side and then clusterfucks like Newsome on the other that can destroy a whole state with his policies all while the people and businesses move out but the US left seems to love him.
In the next few months we will see whether the twitterati are up in arms about "Labour Austerity" after years going on about "Tory Austerity" while we were still spending more than we got in!
I don’t necessarily agree with this move by Reeves, and I will miss that extra money towards my heating bill. The fact of the matter is though, that the utter stinking ****show the Tories left for Labour to clear up is responsible for her having to make these impossible decisions. Labour aren’t promising anything they can’t deliver, unlike all the Tory governments since 2015. So it’s completely relevant to point out that Rishi Sunak as Chancellor gave away billions in corrupt contracts, and as PM failed to disclose budget deficits to the OBR.
