Chancellor statement

[atech]

people need to remember that the state pension is NOT a benefit, it is a RIGHT bought and paid for with a minimum of 38 years national insurance contributions. In my case I paid over 50 years.

It is interesting to see that some people on this forum are whinging and whining about loosing some minor FRIAT privileges, but don’t give a toss about older people loosing some of their income to give other “more deserving people” an excessive pay rise.

As I said before the national debt falls on everyone’s shoulders, not just the elderly.

[James Cutting]

Not sure what state pension has to do with it? It's a right, but a fuel winter payment isn't a right. (Unless I've read your point wrong).

Sure - FRIAT & winter fuel payment are the same?! And no - If it doesn't directly affect me, and others, whereas FRIAT does affect us, of course we would complain about that...

The national debt does fall on everyone's shoulders. They have to start somewhere, and they can't announce all changes at once, it would be pandemonium.

It's funny how this causes outrage, yet when the Tories were putting millions into their friend's pockets for PPE, and millions down the drain on many other things, there wasn't a 5 page thread on that issue

[Malcolm]

The Labour manifesto stated that there would be no increase in taxes.

But now we are being told "Oh yes there will". One easy one is to add on to the price of petrol/diesel all the increases that the previous Government decided to freeze. That would be popular, not, as it would be a very significant increase in price per litre. Make sure you fill up on 29/10.

Not sure where you got that from. They said no increase in Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT. They did not promise to not increase any of the other taxes - so Capital Gains, Fuel Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty, Inheritance etc are all fair game per the manifesto.

Whether these other taxes will bring in enough money to balance the books is doubtful in my mind, so personally I suspect some of 'the big three' taxes will have to go up, manifesto or not.

[atech]

I think you make my point exactly, if it doesn’t affect you you’re not interested, indicative of todays society.

I think the reason we have a five page discussion is because of the strength of feeling and concern that people are sharing.

You are clearly no fan of the Tories, for what it’s worth I used to be, but can’t support the current shower. What I do know is that the labour party is not the answer. They are a bunch of liars far worse than the Tories and will spend the next five years with sloping shoulders saying “it’s not our fault” instead of delivering all of their false promises.

They used to sell themselves as the defenders of the poor, weak and vulnerable, yet their first act is to kick the pensioners in the balls so they can avoid conflict with the public sector workers. It’s not unprecedented for governments to say “no we can’t afford that”.

After all what can the pensioners do? Go on strike, work to rule?

I dread to think what else is to come once all the other unions get their teeth into it.

Grow the economy- I seriously doubt it. Pay

[Malcolm]

As I said before the national debt falls on everyone’s shoulders, not just the elderly.

We now know that pensioners won't get the winter fuel allowance - but that's not usually paid till Nov/Dec anyway. We will find out in the Budget on 30th Oct which other taxes will change and how that will affect other sections of the community.

So it's a bit early to say it's just the elderly bearing the pain of upcoming tax increases/spending cuts.

[eagle driver]

Being relatively vocal on national and local on line chat lines I advocated that the people of this country would be in for a shock once Labour came to power , I even went as far as saying people should seriously go have there head examined by a doctor if they were considering voting Labour .
It was obvious from before the GE that Labour were hiding there real intentions from the public
This Winter payment cut is only the beginning ,they talked big about taxing the rich and penalizing benefit cheats ,or to make corporations pay more tax they have no intention of doing any of it .
Making corporations pay more tax will only invite them to move there money overseas, as with the rich they will just move there money offshore.
Benefit cheats we all no some one in this system , never worked having there housing rent paid for them.
Our chancellor bless her cotton socks could not do anything about any of this so she attacked the easy target Pensioners just stop payments to all pensioners not on Benefit s.
The Cold weather payment was worth around 3% of a person s pension so not a great amount .
But what is totally wrong is where the cut lies people who worked all the lives and safeguarded there future now find themselves worse off than people who sat on there back sides all there lives .
Being means tested just to find out if you qualify for Government hand out will inevitable put a lot of people off going anywhere near the DWP .
This opens up a whole new can of worms .Anyone being unemployed or on any kind of benefit will tell you that Far more hassle than its worth
All Rachel Reeves has done is invite the Unions to launch the next round of pay demands which she will inevitably cave in to and it will be the Public picking up the bill.
Some good may come out of this , hopefully come the next GE , Doctors visits to see if people are insane will become compulsory . What may come of the UK in the next 5 years no one can predict it is not looking good so far

[James Cutting]

Again, it's all slating the move and the party, and no real offerings of what should be done instead.

[slogen51]

Hear! Hear!

I think a lot of people forget about the 2007-2008 financial crisis and Blair/Brown Quantitative Easing that cost billions in supporting Bond prices and that wasn't even a pandemic such as COVID

A lot of people entitled to pension credits who don't claim might well do now - so it could cost more money than it saves

Take winter fuel allowance away from pensioners AND at the same time pull back from GBIS - Government backed home insulation schemes

"Labour officials confirmed on Wednesday the party would not spend the full £6bn previously promised for home insulation until later in the parliament, and might not at all if it were to result in rising levels of government debt."

Labour’s pledge to insulate 19m homes in a decade has been thrown into doubt after the party confirmed it would not spend £6bn a year allocated for the scheme if its fiscal rules did not allow, while the government claimed it would cost twice that.

[slogen51]

They need the money from pensioners to help pay the 22% increase to junior doctors ( they are only on £60k after 5 years)

Let's not forget the "£22bn black hole" that Reeves bangs on about includes the latest round of pay increases - I don't think Reeves had the stomach for the industrial action that inevitably follows these pay negotiations - nurses will see this settlement and say that they should be getting more and they are probably the only ones who actually deserve it!!

I have already said what I think could be done instead - what amazes me is that labour criticized the ' years of austerity ' under the Tories after COVID and now we are having more of it but now it's called secure economics or "securenomics" straight from Joe Biden

[eagle driver]

Again, it's all slating the move and the party, and no real offerings of what should be done instead.

Ok then James this is a idea straight of the top of my head and i can probably pre guess the reaction .
What if every person currently in employment were told that the government where going to take 3% from everyone s wage packet
After all it is fair everyone is treated the same no one can complain about being singled out like the Pensioners have been , this week

[iainpeden]

people need to remember that the state pension is NOT a benefit, it is a RIGHT bought and paid for with a minimum of 38 years national insurance contributions. In my case I paid over 50 years.

I see where you're coming from but not strictly accurate. NI is not a personal pension pot built up over 38 or more years. Our state pension is currently paid by people working paying NI which is really just a supposedly hypothecated tax. That's the reason the fall in birth-rate in "first world countries" is such a concern because in 30 years time there'll not be enough people in work to pay the pensions.

[James Cutting]

Again, it's all slating the move and the party, and no real offerings of what should be done instead.

Ok then James this is a idea straight of the top of my head and i can probably pre guess the reaction .
What if every person currently in employment were told that the government where going to take 3% from everyone s wage packet
After all it is fair everyone is treated the same no one can complain about being singled out like the Pensioners have been , this week

Well what do you think national insurance goes to? They take 33.25% in Tax & NI they just need to spend it more wisely (but they won't).

[iainpeden]

Again, it's all slating the move and the party, and no real offerings of what should be done instead.

Ok then James this is a idea straight of the top of my head and i can probably pre guess the reaction .
What if every person currently in employment were told that the government where going to take 3% from everyone s wage packet
After all it is fair everyone is treated the same no one can complain about being singled out like the Pensioners have been , this week

I guess nobody disagrees that the country is economically in a mess; personally I put a lot of it down to the mistakes by the former government who did have 14 years to make the economy strong - notwithstanding Covid and Ukraine.
This would have needed to be sorted out by whichever party won the election on the 4th July - although it could be expected that the Tories would just have carried on making up schemes and not funding them (that's not me but the OBR).
So money has to be found from somewhere but both parties said they would not raise income tax rates and VAT so decisions have to be made and Labour have decided they will do what has already been announced and certainly more, indirect, tax rises in the future.
Eagle driver's suggested raise of 3% income tax across the board - might do the business and would be equitable; whether it would be a high enough figure or need to be in place for long I don't know. I do know that when I started working the income tax rate was close to 30%, but you could get to see a doctor or dentist, there were plenty of school places and no teacher shortages, town libraries were not at the front of the cuts list, people at uni didn't end up with massive bills because education was seen as an investment. (and we had 30+ frontline squadrons).

[James Cutting]

Absolutely hit the nail on the head.

Sure, Labour may well have started this mess years back (through some people's eyes) but 14 years of Tories neglected to fix it. So what should Labour do - Sit back and do nothing?

[steamy]

Again, it's all slating the move and the party, and no real offerings of what should be done instead.

Ok then James this is a idea straight of the top of my head and i can probably pre guess the reaction .
What if every person currently in employment were told that the government where going to take 3% from everyone s wage packet
After all it is fair everyone is treated the same no one can complain about being singled out like the Pensioners have been , this week

ever hear of a sh*t sandwich?

When delivering bad news, you have some softer elements which seem bad at the time, you taper that so it seems one section is affected disproportionally (pensioners in this case, exacerbated by the junior doctors pay rise)....

You let that run for a bit, one side feeling aggrieved.

Then you get to the sh*tty meat .. this case will be tax rises or major cuts for all.... pensioners will be left alone at this point, but will feel happy everyone is getting the same treatment now....

You exit the sh*tty part to the other slice of bread with some good news (inflation going down, deficits covered, NHS rebuilding itself

I think overall, the working person is going to be paying more than 3% over the next few years. Pensioners will probably be happy to be pensioners again.

[James Cutting]

Exactly that, well put. It seems a lot of pensioners don't even use the Winter Fuel Payment for their winter fuel so...yeah

[baz1]

Rachel Reeves claimed there is a £22billion black hole and its down to the Tories. Labour left a similar problem in 2010 with then treasury chief secretary Liam Byrne's note reading ( i'm afraid there is no money left) if we really are broke. why not stop Foreign Aid and stop giving illegal immigrants so much, if you were running a household, would you give to others and let your own go without? not if you had a brain.
so Rachel Reeves is to swing the an spending because of a £22 billion black hole
and Reeves is all agog at the so called "Mess" left by the Tories Did she sleep through the pandemic, furlough, the war in Ukraine and the cost of living rise? it's a Miracle the Tories managed to get the country on an even keel and with falling interest rates. Wake up Reeves!?

Post edited by the moderators to keep on topic

[James Cutting]

The Tories had 14 years to fix this, and they didn't. Instead, they wasted millions on HS2, Rwanda, PPE contracts to name a few. But many don't like to admit that.

Post editied to keep on topic by the moderators.

[baz1]

The Tories had 14 years to fix this, and they didn't. Instead, they wasted millions on HS2, Rwanda, PPE contracts to name a few. But many don't like to admit that.

it will all come to the surface sooner or later.

post edited to keep on topic

[James Cutting]

Well, that's what is happening now