Regular like clockwork …
Every year at this time in September, the Westminster chatterati and MSM pundits bleat about the fabulous ‘triple lock’ for the state pensions. Every year we hear that “we” cannot afford this, that it’s unsustainable, that “we” are too old as a country and that it’s so terribly unfair to the young. Never mind though because our MSM print editions are again in full catastrophe mood (link). I wonder how long it’ll be before the usual suspects declare that a burst dam was caused by ‘climate catastrophe’ …
It’s wonderful to see how it’s always some Tory Grandee who comes out with the call to scrap the Triple Lock. It’s wonderful to see how the Lefty footsoldiers bleat about the Triple Lock being a dastardly Tory ploy, to keep ‘the blue rinse brigade’ voting for them. I’ve not heard the label ‘blue rinse brigade’ for years and years. Is there one actually still alive?
Interestingly, you don’t hear Labour Big Beasts accusing the government of being wasteful with “our” money. I wonder why that is … For the record, I present you firstly with the opinion piece by William Hague in The Times on Monday – the day before which the Treasury decides which is larger, inflation, wage rises or the 2.5% they are obliged to pay out for the State pension. Under the headline
“It’s time to unpick the triple lock on pensions – The system is both unsustainable and unfair in its current form but it will take cross-party co-operation to change it” (link, paywalled)
Hague has come up with another ‘reason’ for scrapping it: “intergenerational fairness”. No, I haven’t a clue what this is supposed to mean, nor do the comment posters who are however certain that such a rise would be ever so unfair. This argument was picked up by a piece in the Speccie, opining in their email email newsletter that “the only chance of them dropping the triple lock is if Labour does the same in its manifesto and creates the political space to do so.”. This morning we have a piece by Philip Johnstone in the DT, warning that perhaps the whole system of the state pension is under threat (paywalled link) and that ‘Teh Young’ ought to be taught how to save for old age.
Here’s a very strange thing: nobody in the Westminster dinner circles moans about the universal tax credit which the young, actually working families receive. Nobody moans about the sustainability of all the bennies handed out to people of working age where generations are living on those bennies.
Nobody except some horrible ‘extreme far right populists’ mentions the cost of all those dinghy drivers, now housed in posh hotels. Funny, innit, how immigration – legal, illegal, who cares – is deemed necessary because “we” are such an ageing nation that “we” can’t produce our own state income. That, we’re being told, is why we need those people. Funny, innit, that none of them is working and contributing to the state.
Meanwhile, Labour is quiet. It is difficult for them to campaign against the triple lock because they have been supporting the strikes of working people – from railway workers to nurses, from posties to rubbish collectors – because of inflation. They, unlike the Tories, understand that inflation hits everybody, not just those who work.
Moreover, they probably remember the outcry which nearly killed Gordon Brown’s career in 1999 when he increased the state pension by 75 pence (link). Next year, he raised the pension by twice the rate of inflation, giving a proud £5 per week to single pensions and £8 per week to couples. Well, that was nearly two dozen years ago, so let’s look at the current numbers produced in the DM:
“Implementing that increase [due to the triple lock] would mean a full basic state pension going from £156.20 per week to £169.50. A full new state pension – typically offered to those who reached state pension age since April 2016 – would rise from £203.85 per week to £221.20.” (link)
Yep, that’s clearly unsustainable and terribly unfair especially since this sum will be paid out in April next year when inflation has hopefully been decreasing. None of the ‘concerned’ wailers about ‘unsustainability’ and ‘intergenerational unfairness’ ever points out that any pensioner in receipt of an occupational pension is paying tax on every penny above the statutory income-tax free sum.
None of the wailers ever mentions the gold-plated, index-linked pensions handed out to civil serpents, national or local. Don’t ask me why that is not intergenerationally unfair! Perhaps ‘government’ ought to scrap paying the state pension for all whose private pension plans means their income in retirement is above the mean income – that would be fair, no?
I wonder why all those who last year screamed about the terrible fate of the elderly, forced to either eat or heat, are now so suspiciously quiet. Might they feel that their support for salary increases won’t play well when the state makes savings on the back of their grandparents?
That’s all I have for today. I wonder if the warfare against the old will end when all the hated older generation has kicked the bucket. Have a good day.
Ref Mary 11.45am
I believe it was a coup and thus you are quite correct in calling it a government of occupation.
In fact I would say they are a Junta.
There was an absolute joker of a panellist on Michelle Dewberry’s GB News programme last night whose name was Peter Edwards apparently from some organisation called Labour List who claimed that the parlous state of this country’s High Streets was somehow down to UKIP, a party that has no MP’s in the House of Commons and very few councilors the length and breadth of the country, and virtually no influence. The background to the discussion was the closure of Wilko’s where some 12,500 employees are to lose their jobs as a result, and his comment about UKIP was that its beliefs belong in the past. Well, all I can say to the tripe he was spouting that if this is the best that Labour Party can offer the electorate of this country, they too should never have access to the keys of 10, Downing Street. I would expected a Labour supporter to be in favour of a strong and vibrant High Street which could offer employment to thousands of people, but that is obviously of little consequence to them these days. It is a disgraceful state of affairs that we have two utterly useless mainstream parties who do not deserve any representation in Parliament.
CH Labour haven’t a leg to stand on to defend themselves; they cant justify themselves at all, so all they can do is attack their opponents. Even if UKIPs beliefs *are* in the past, whatever that’s meant to mean:
what’s wrong with that, if the past was better than what we have now? And indeed it *was* better.
Then the Blair creature came along , defiled and corrupted everything and sold Britain out.
Well if we get a Labour government we’ll in effect be getting the Blair creature back.
Although whatever the GE results turn out to be, the Globocap parasites will be running the show and sucking Britain white.
Why don’t you listen to UK Column for a while instead? Have a change?
PS to mary: I’m not saying there was no rottenness or corruption pre Blair: of course there was, plenty; and the seeds were planted then for much pf todays evils; but I do think Blair raised rottenness to a new art form.
Ref aPhilosophical10.40am
How does the Muslim world fancy integration with banking digitally alongside the apostates’ system
Surely this system could never work world wide
Also, if the twenty are all in it together will they be able to control usage by people in their neighbours country, in other words how could sovereignty be ensured?
It is so cynical. When discussing state pension they always use percentages. But 8.5% of a small sum is peanuts, which probably won’t even cover the draining costs of this year’s rising food bills and inescapable household and standing orders, for heating, transport, council tax, etc, let alone the next, whereas 8.5% of the average wage is a substantial sum. Yet a loaf costs the same to the richest and the poorest.
And if we are broke how can Rishi dish out £1.62bn, that will have to be covered by more borrowing or money printing, to a ‘climate fund’ for poorer countries which would easily cover it and more. Hugely in debt, aren’t we now a ‘poorer country’? Never mind virtue signalling (even if you don’t believe they are actively seeking to bring this country low), charity begins at home.
The blatant hypocrisy is sickening.
We’re an occupied country now. with a Government of Occupation. Nothing but nothing will be done to benefit us the citizens. How can we get these globocap parasites off our backs.
The assault on the triple lock is looking increasingly like a distraction from and false villain for the unsustainable levels of government expenditure. We live in a country with a lower pension than many European countries, have worse outcomes for cancer treatment, a transport system that is expensive and unreliable compared to system on the continent (though Germany’s trains are intriguingly bad these days), and a serious housing crisis. Yet, the government throws money around like confetti on net zero, Ukraine, and overseas aid.
I was at a lunch yesterday with Lord Butler, the mandarins mandarin, as speaker. He had served five prime ministers (Heath to Blair) and his theme was to describe how the UK moved from ‘Yes, Minister’ to ‘The Thick of It’. It was Alistair Campbell who changed the relation between government and media introducing tactics – leaking, planting, inventing alternative stories to eclipse bad news etc – that continue to this day changing from occasional tactics by government (Heath and Wilson) to the modern day default. His personal response to news these days is to wonder :what are they trying to conceal?
The triple lock is not going to sink the UK. So what is that they want to distract from? The potential list is quite long.
Ah, Lord Butler has now also cotton on to the fact that the ‘news’ produced in the MSM are there to conceal things! One such concealment is for example the new Energy Bill which was barely reported and has now sunk below the MSM horizon.
Oh btw – just seen in a German publication: the Bavarian Party, ‘Freie Waehler’, whose top candidate had been smeared as Nazi thanks to an unspeakable action by Greens and German MSM, is now at 17% in the latest poll, making it the second largest Party after their coalition Partner CSU which also lost a point. The Lefty SPD, the Green Party, the yellow Liberals all have lost points … teeheehee!
I’m very interested in developments in Germany so do keep us all posted. What happens in Germany has ramifications for the EU and even us.
The main reason for so may squirrels at the moment (China Spies anyone?) is probably this:
https://www.ntd.com/g20-announces-plan-to-impose-digital-currencies-and-ids-worldwide_941560.html
Never even mentioned to, let alone put to, any electorate in the world. Yet here are out ‘leaders’, the One World Government puppets, announcing what has been labelled a conspiracy theory, whilst they beavered away creating the infrastructure in secret at our expense, as fait accompli.