As the Guardian reports this morning:
Treasury officials are discussing a one-off break from the pensions triple lock that could save £1bn by preventing a bumper 8.5% increase in the state pension next year.
The government is considering stripping out public sector bonuses that were awarded to workers to prevent strikes over the summer from the calculation that determines the annual rise in pensions.
Ministers will now consider whether to instead adopt an earnings link that tracks the underlying level of pay growth, which could mean pensions increasing at the lower level of 7.8% from April 2024.
Let's not for the moment consider the absurdity of the government trying to ignore the fact that it paid one-off bonuses as part of pay settlements this year so that workers might be much worse off in future years as these payments were not consolidated into base pay. Instead, let's just consider what this looks like politically.
To be mean on pensioners - and remember that for most pensioners, the old age pension is the primary source of their income - the government is planning to use an artifice (or, less politely, a fiddle) in an attempt to save £1 billion a year. In itself, that looks mean at best and petty at worst in the run-up to an election.
But it looks so much worse when you realise that over the last week I have, by making just six tax recommendations, suggested ways the government could raise well over £60 billion in additional tax revenue. Any one of those would cover the cost of this payment. Many would do so several times over. Even if scaled back, they could still do so.
In that case, what is clear is that the government is making a choice. It is deciding that it will not tax those with wealth and it will punish pensioners for the fact that there has been inflation which has brought new misery to the lives of many of them - because the real inflation rate of those on low pay is known to be much higher than the average recorded rate of inflation.
What is more, Labour is making it clear that it might well do the same. It is refusing to make any commitment on the pension triple lock.
I am not pretending that any government need make all the tax changes that I have suggested so far. I will not be suggesting that they need make all the changes I have still to propose. Nor do I suggest that, in aggregate, these recommendations might raise the sums that they might make if undertaken individually. I am aware of the uncertainties around any such forecast. But what I do know is that the capacity to tax the owners of wealth and those with high wages in the UK both exists and is technically feasible, and yet no politician seems willing to do it. That, in my opinion, reflects the moral bankruptcy of our politics when it is poorer pensioners who might suffer as a result.
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And those greedy public sector workers will get the blame for the pension cuts: perfect! Divide and (mis)rule.
Pensioners, all of them, are voters.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” Emma Goldman, US political activist, anarchist and writer (1869-1940).
“If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it” – Mark Twain (1835-1910).
The reluctance of vile-tory or vile-liebore to adopt even modest tax changes with respect to the rich illustrates two things. The veracity of the two quotes & to some extent the inter-workings between gov/political parties/gov agencies (BoE) and their interlocutors in the meeja – large parts of which are owned by… the rich & thus by extension, the powerful.
Expressions of concern by polic-sickos with respect to pensioners are mostly performative; ““Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (Orwell). When Reeves (or Kid Starver) opens her trap – she meets the entirety of Orwells quote. The current political system won’t tax the rich because the current political system is owned/controlled/influenced by – the rich. Emphasis on “owned/controlled/influenced”. In terms of trajectories – the Musk/Starlink/Ukraine saga is indicative of how the rich want to exert more overt control of “international/gov events”. One could thus see that they will, collectively be unhappy at the propect of being taxed more, and will deploy meeja resources & pull political strings to stop that, thus proving the Twain/Goldman statements.
We’ve clearly already left democracy behind – if we ever had it, which is debatable – and have entered the age of oligarchy where the political system and media are run for the benefit of the very wealthy. Bring on, then, the inevitable social collapse so we can spend the following Dark Age organising a better future.
The government always seems to find the keys to open the triple lock when it deicides that the lock needs opening. It is a shame that they do not have the willingness to be as flexible in other areas of policy. Pragmatic men are the slaves of dead philosophers. Just another stage of progress for this brain dead zombie government.
You are looking to punish pensioners by taxing much more aggressively their savings accumulated through a lifetime’s work.
My proposals have no impact at all on a person’s pension fund.
They do create equity in the releif on contributions (which you ignhore, I note).
They do not change the actual pension.
So, what is the basis for your claim, precisely?
Many elderly people rely on income from Sipps and Savings such as ISAs or buy to lets.., your proposals will take money out of their pockets at a time when they are no longer able to work.
Why?
What have I said that suggests that? Details please, because it is not true.
Totally agree.
Obviously if you are not in the rich club you can only be the rich man’s burden – because they pay for everything apparently.
Which is rubbish – but that is essentially what Sir Kraven and Mis-read are saying – that we still need the wealthy’s money to trickle down.
Which it does not.
But let’s zoom in about ‘morality’ – where is it, where is it not?
It’s obvious to me that the morality we have is a twisted one. Taking ‘hard earned’ money from the rich is the moral underhand that exists in the West at the moment – it is ‘their’ money – they have been anointed to have it, they are special and superior. They are worth it.
The money was just their and just happened to have found its way to them – there are no questions asked about who created the money, why it was created or how it should be distributed and what its intent was. It’s just there for the taking apparently.
So the rich keep accumulating their money, and are being allowed to keep more of it because of a promise that politicians use – and which the rich do not keep – to invest in the economy and produce more tax returns.
What they actually do is invest their money in sustaining political parties that will not tax them and make it harder for them to move their money around or to invest in extractive enterprises that tend to take other people’s wealth.
It is pure survival, social Darwinism, Ayn Rand ‘me first’ thinking. There is no morality in it all. It’s just a state of self justified primacy that our politicians suck up to and in doing so lend legitimacy to.
“for most pensioners, the old age pension is the primary source of their income”
Hmm. Not sure about the “most”. I would have thought that most pensioners have some sort of contributory scheme in place paying an annuity, or they are drawing down on savings, which is their primary source of income. In many cases the state pension is just a useful addition. I know plenty of people who are in that happy position. Do you have any figures?
“ In FYE 2022, benefit income, which includes State Pension, was the largest component of total gross income for both pensioner couples and single pensioners. This was 56% for single pensioners, while for pensioner couples it was 38%.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-series-financial-year-2021-to-2022/pensioners-incomes-series-financial-year-2021-to-2022
That’s very interesting. Thanks.
You obviously assume that your acquaintances, who have savings and annuities are the norm. Many have no such things.
There are 12 million people who claim the state pension. Of those 8 million pay tax.
So you are right about it not being most.
However, if you add a small private pension to a state pension to bring it over £12570 you pay tax on the difference. The new state pension is £10,600 so you only need a private pension of £2000 to pay tax.
I presume all the people you know are quite happy to live on £13000?
That £12570 is going to remain in place until 2027/8 so there are going to be a lot more pensioners paying tax in the coming years.
Again, the government has forgotten they broke the triple lock last year when we only got 3.1% instead of 8.1%. It appears most other people have forgotten that, too.
Most of my spendable income is from my pension. I’m very disabled, so I have top rate of PIP. The mobility component goes directly to Motability for my car, without which I wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere (including to doctor, dentist, optician, let alone to go to caravan for holidays). The “Living” element of PIP goes on usually having to have expensive extras because I can’t do things for myself, though OH is wonderful in helping me out with things like cooking and some housework – fortunately we’ve never been houseproud in the cleaning department!
But I’m very lucky in that as an only child I inherited from my parents. Which enabled us to buy a house mortgage free and have it renovated while we sold our old home. I have money in the bank (which I never had before!) which I spend on such fripperies as lots of books for my GrandKids. I used to run a school bookshop way back when, and I think kids having their own books is really important. My mum didn’t like books – regarded them as “clutter”, also “What do you want books for? You can get them from the library”. (Could do with a Roll Eyes Emoji here!)
So a cut in pension wouldn’t affect me immediately… But I don’t want to lose that income as if my OH pre-deceases me I probably won’t have any choice other than to go into a “nursing home”. The money I have in the bank will prob only pay for a couple of years giving how expensive they have become.
Sorry, I’m probably rambling. But thought maybe my personal experience might be of interest or use.
Thank you
We have created a society where worry is normal
That seems like a definition of failure to me
Yes – worry is the new normal – the ‘5 Giants’ are back and roaming freely.
Maggie, I can’t move because of all the books I have. Far too many to pack up. The last time we moved 13 years ago the removal men complained about the number of boxes of books we had, and I thought we had got rid of lots of them!
That was when my husband was alive. I certainly couldn’t do it on my own, 11 years later.
I know the feeling.
The last time we moved I found a box a removal person had written ‘More f’ing books’ on.
For reasons of space, when I was about 40 I gave away almost all my books. I had around 1500, mostly paperbacks, mostly sci-fi (as it was called then)/action/adventure. I mourn them still. I retain their details on a primitive database, however, and if life permits I’d love to get them all again.
You raise an interesting point.
I am contemplating giving some books away. They are mainly on themes I no longer explore and have not for some time.
I can face doing so because when I last moved I gifted hundreds of books to charities. Most were novels. I rarely reread any novel. So although I no longer have the near complete works of Iris Murdoch I am not worried: I doubt I will go there again. I should have used the library, after all.
On the other hand, getting rid of some of the books on railway history I first began collecting as a teenager is very hard to imagine.
So for me reference books are indispensable. Poetry is for life. But some books are definitely transitory.
You may find it difficult to give them away. By and large, the high street charity shops don’t want them. I eventually found one in Kingston on the pedestrianised section and had to go back and forth from the other side of Hampton Court with a couple of carrier bags full of books each time till they were all gone. Bar the 21 Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald, I kept them. Life permitting again, I’ll be taking a trip some day to Slip F18 (or thereabouts since the reconstruction) Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale to look back over fond, albeit 3rd-hand, memories of dancing with Junebug and Meyer at the Alabama Tiger’s floating house party in the Florida of old, before they ruined it.
The French retire at 62, in the UK it is five years later at 67
The French pension is typically £1,060 per month, in the UK it is 42% less at £615.
If other countries can “afford” it…
Ref. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64229379
I blame the Tories they have managed to bring this country to its knees. They make older people look like devils because we are rich RICH well I would challenge anyone to come and live on the State Pension for a month they would have to do everything like bills, shopping worrying where they are going next. I am sick and tired of the media using the government’s crap. What has happened to this country it is not the country that my parents and grandparents would believe it if they could come back and see. The ONLY PERSON I would believe in is Rory Stewart he was on the radio and I thought WOW this is someone who needs to get into parliament to sort things out he was a rebel and voted against the Tories who were his team. HE really is good and if he really is genuine I would love him to look at the country and say to himself shit I had better do something
He followed the Tory line on benefits when in office
How often can a measure be called “one-off”? The triple lock was suspended for 2022-23, so to suspend it again for 2024-25 seems like a two-off to me.
There is also the knock on effect as the pension is always increased by a %. The money lost through a ‘one off’ suspension of the lock is never recovered and the amount lost increases every year.
Correct