Political

The weekend debate: should benefits for pensioners be restricted?

Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith have both been arguing within the government for rich pensioners to have their benefits cut:

Nick Clegg is backing calls for cuts in pension benefits such as winter fuel payments and free bus passes. David Cameron is said to be adamant that the Tories should keep to a pledge made before the general election that the payments remain. But Clegg is understood to have told colleagues he wants the winter payments and free TV licences cut for all but the poorest pensioners in a bid to cut government spending. The deputy Prime Minister’s opinion follows calls for cuts yesterday from work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith. He wants to reduce the £5bn bill for elderly benefits, which includes the likes of free TV licences and prescriptions, free bus and Tube travel and NHS eye tests.

 

9 responses to “The weekend debate: should benefits for pensioners be restricted?”

  1. Means testing pensioner benefits will drive the wrong behaviours. What is the point of putting aside for a pension if it means you will not enjoy the benefits that others get? It will only be worthwhile if you can generate a sufficiently large pension to make it worthwhile. It will become like benefits – there will be a margin (level) around which it is not worth doing and you may as well spend the money now rather than put it into a pension. Better to encourage people to have a sensible pension so they do not need Government handouts to live on. It is pensions that need to get better, not benefits otherwise we develop a dependency culture.

  2. A great many pensioners are very well off. Why do people go all starry-eyed when they talk about the "dear old age pensioners" They are not all one person! Giving them £200 to have a week-end in Europe- when many of them already have houses there, is ridiculous. Giving them a free bus pass while some have two cars, and some students can hardly afford the fare to get to college is madness! It's common sense to give benefits to the people that need it- it doesn't matter about their age. That's ageist!
    Nick Clegg is right but will the childish and reactionary Media and public grow up enough to see it? I doubt it!

  3. 1. Austerity for pensioners vs total freedom for the banks.
    We keep getting messages from on high (meaning Dr Cable and IDS) that austerity is.
    necessary because the economy is in such bad shape.
    Let me lay it on the line:
    The amount of debt in the British economy is the worst in the G10 because of “financial.
    debt” = bank gambling casino debt. Many of the banks aren’t even British. The two latest “rogue trader” scenarios featured UBS (Swiss) and JP Morgan (American) but both the dastardly deeds were perpetrated in London – home of Boris and Dave’s pets – the ones who bring in their bacon – and ours they lead us to believe.
    Vince and IDS are asking pensioners to forgo their accustomed privileges because foreign banks won’t forgo THEIR accustomed privileges – not even accept pay restrain when the average UK worker has had major pay CUTS in the last two years due to inflation and zero return on savings.

  4. 2. Which is the most successful country in the world currently: China.
    Does it have free capital markets as prescribed by the Neo-Cons: NO.
    Does it have a floating exchange rate, open to market manipulation by banks and hedge funds: NO.
    If the most successful country does not obey the Free-market mantras, and most of the rest of the world is going bust – why are we expected to continue to believe this Neo-Con CON.
    The problem is that since Thatcher/Lawson deregulated the banks, the markets and.
    abolished the requirement to present your passport to take money out of the country there has been a slow but deadly evisceration of the real economy, and in the fantasy of Dave Cameron and Boris Johnson we are now dependent upon the very mechanisms which have destroyed the real economy.
    There is a phantom economy out there operating on computer algorithms where the inter-bank debts are 10 times the real debts or more. And these contracts are considered lawful and valid.

  5. 3 I had the misfortune to go to a Methodist direct-grant boarding school. They did teach me several useful things: never gamble, go easy on the drink and cigarettes, and never take drugs.
    Unfortunately we have put our economic well-being in the hands of drug-fuelled arbitrageurs, whose sole aim is to make profit for themselves and their financial houses.
    Not the welfare of Britain, leave alone the welfare of pensioners. Not to mention Iceland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
    I have some shares in an Irish building company – Abbey plc. Their directors forced themselves during the Irish property madness to switch all available funds into British Gilts (government debt). Abbey plc are still paying a respectable dividend through this foresight, despite the collapse of house building in Ireland – probably shortly to be followed here in the UK.

  6. 4. What is needed is an international agreement to regulate the capital markets. It is not enough to make the banks have their reserves monitored if the reserves are still at risk from manic speculation.
    I was delighted to see on Friday 8th June that Mr Kweku Adoboli – the so-called UBS rogue trader – was granted bail. He has been in prison since 15th September 2011 without trial, to save the face of UBS management. Mr Adoboli’s legal representatives are fortunately now requisitioning the background files, emails and text messages floating abvout in the UBS trading environment, as applicable to their case.
    I am looking forward to the trial (starting early to mid September) and will attend if possible. It will be very interesting to hear what sort of people are running on of Europe’s major banks. The one whose slogan are “You and Us” and “UBS. Here today. Here tomorrow”.
    I thnk this trial has pentential to be sensational – along the lines of the Levenson enquiry.
    And I confidently predict that the Jury will find Mr Adoboli innocent.

  7. 5. All people retiring now, or soon to retire who have private pensions with pension pots are suffering desperately already due to QE. A couple on R4 today were complaining they had been expecting to get £16,000 p.a. and are actually going to get £4,000 p.a. They will therefore be entitled to pension credit etc. The mess that is private pensions makes any consideration of free bus passes, TV licenses irrelebant. When are Clegg & co going to wake up to the fact that the ruined economy has destroyed pension value BIGTIME?
    As one who had already had all benefit removed due to the Welfare Reform Act, I couldn't give a toss about pensioners passes – when I have to pay full fare, and now get a letter telling me I have to last out another 9 years on my savings until am 66 to get the old age pension (if it still exists in 2020!).

  8. 6. If I get more heat from Mr Clegg's kitchen I will be actively seeking out some illegal immigrants and building some sheds in my back garden!
    Mr Clegg's Westminster and Cambridge education seems to have been a waste of tax-payer subsidy – which he now denies to present day students.
    Time for a coup in the LDs I say. Get someone in charge who understands ordinary peoples problems – vote for Lorely Burt for example. A woman representing real people in the North who understands the problems of real people in a devastated economy.
    Grrrrrh!

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