It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
Pensioners only remember for so long, and can only vote Conservative once each time. And now have more disposable income, on average, than working people. Which can’t be right.
They can vote Lib Dem who are opposing this measure
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
Why was WFA cut and social care cut announced in July instead of with all the other cuts in the October Budget, which would have been the right place?
My theory is this was a deliberate attempt to be clever. They knew it would cause a bit of a stink but that also meant that the row would also focus attention on the message Labour aides really want stuck in the public's heads: the Tories left a £22b hole.
I reckon they did not expect such a bitter kick back on this one.
Too clever by half I reckon. But we will only know when the diaries are published in ten years time.
Re the Starmer interview - I am a little relieved to hear him talk about reform for the NHS rather than just the spending trap (though he did allude to that also). This is the sort of thinking he does need to be getting out there. I am still, from his early actions, very unconvinced he has what it takes to really take on some of the vested interests and get meaningful reform through - but at least the topic is on the table.
The worse aspect of the May/Johnson/Sunak government was the unconservative belief that a problem could be solved by throwing money at it. The NHS has been soaked in money.
Has it?
How many comparable countries spend less on the public provision of healthcare?
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
The very fact that everyone has already forgotten about the two child cap rebellion, but will doubtless be caterwauling about fuel handouts until next Easter if the Government fails to appease the elderly, tells you everything you need to know about our people and their priorities. The only thing that would result in more screaming would be a decision to reprieve Winter fuel payments by paying for them through a hike in inheritance tax.
"I never ever thought I would write this but England deserve to lose this, just for their sheer arrogance and lack of respect for Sri Lanka. Hopefully,they might learn a lesson.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
But they’re not “giving it to train drivers” are they. That’s just tabloid speak. Not least because the actual amounts are vastly different from each other, but also because, at least in paper, the pay rises come from TOC budgets. If someone paying for them, it’s train passengers.
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
I wouldn't go that far but placing it somewhere else in Downing Street seems fine
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It’s the easiest, laziest thing in the world to argue for the retention of the universal WFA. Reeves should stand her ground.
This England team are almost incapable of playing test cricket over 5 days. They win or lose in 3 or 4 days.
It's end of season nonsense. They have to do it for the money but don't want to be there. I wasted 200 quid watching or not watching crap cricket on Fri and Sat.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
Would it be stupid of me to ask whether you liked Thatcher?
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
But they’re not “giving it to train drivers” are they. That’s just tabloid speak. Not least because the actual amounts are vastly different from each other, but also because, at least in paper, the pay rises come from TOC budgets. If someone paying for them, it’s train passengers.
It may be tabloid speak but it is narrative that has gained traction (if you forgive the pun)
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
All of which is politics as normal, you know that.
Any policy worthy of the name has downsides, and it's the job of the media and the opposition to flag them. And the job of government to do the things they judge right anyway.
(See, for example, the two child benefit cap.)
And as a thought experiment... Imagine the WFA didn't currently exist, and Starmer announced its introduction. I hope you would be as cross as anyone at the waste of money on a badly-aimed gimmick.
“Knife attacks happen almost daily, 2 gang rapes happen every day on average, the majority of the perpetrators are young migrants who are entirely disrespectful of women. "This is the reality and we must end it."
Nigel Farage? Mme Le Pen?
No, the likely next Chancellor of Germany
These are huge shifts and the British government will soon look very exposed on the crumbling Woke left
One of the key misconceptions in Western politics is that the baby boomers are the drivers of reactionary politics and that as they die off, we'll bask in a progressive utopia. In reality it's almost exactly the reverse, particularly on the continent.
Anything to avoid serious engagement with the issue.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
I wouldn't go that far but placing it somewhere else in Downing Street seems fine
The issue is mentioning that it's been done in the first place. Starmer thinks it makes him look strong but in fact it makes him weak.
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
Would it be stupid of me to ask whether you liked Thatcher?
I’m happy to answer that question if you stop ignoring the question I always ask you: what do you see in Matt Goodwin?
The cue for me to do the Sunday Rawnsley, while I am still in bed waiting for the sun to come up:
It was an Anyone But The Conservatives election back in July. Labour won it by being the most preferred of the Anyones and secured its victory with a mammoth parliamentary majority because its campaign was very well targeted and support was efficiently distributed. So it is not accurate to say that the country has already fallen out of love with Labour; the country was never in love with Labour in the first place.
One of the reasons that this [fuel] furore has become potent is that left, right and centre can all find reasons to oppose the cut.
[After Rishi], Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing when the Lib Dem leader showcased a real-life example of what it would mean for the family finances of a carer whose income was just a few hundred pounds above the cut-off for continuing to qualify for the payment. Sir Ed received an unrebarbative response from Sir Keir. His emollient tone to his fellow knight had me wondering whether the prime minister is already preparing himself to move in the direction of a compromise. It is the mood among Labour MPs that is being anxiously monitored by their whips.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer. The saving to the exchequer will be around £1.5bn, not a trivial sum, but only about a hundredth of the total spend on pensioner benefits in the last financial year.
Many now think that we are heading towards some kind of U-turn, probably not immediately, but more likely when Ms Reeves unveils the budget at the end of October. The question then becomes how a retreat can be conducted without weakening the authority of the chancellor and the prime minister.
She won’t cancel the cut. My hunch is that she will eventually make a partial retreat which assuages the impact on the group about whom Labour MPs are most bothered: pensioners who don’t qualify or claim the credit and for whom this change will mean hardship. Then she and the prime minister will have to figure out how to make the U-turn elegant rather than embarrassing.
Just interested in the interest of political fairness, why did you edit out this part out
Adopting a hitherto concealed persona as a champion of the poor, Rishi Sunak drew a little blood at the most recent prime minister’s questions by demanding where was the justice in giving a pay rise of almost £10,000 to well-remunerated train drivers and removing the fuel support for low-income pensioners living on just £13,000 a year. Tory MPs, who don’t have much to smile about these days, enjoyed themselves, baying “Shame!”.
Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing ............................................................
Because it was a detail trivial to Rawnsley’s argument, whereas the Davey reference points towards a possible compromise or u-turn, which would be news. The art of editing is cutting out irrelevant padding and summarising the core thrust of the argument.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
Yes but you are calling for more income tax while retaining a universal freebie, aren’t you?
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It’s the easiest, laziest thing in the world to argue for the retention of the universal WFA. Reeves should stand her ground.
Someone asked why it was that she announced getting rid of WFA as soon as she got into No 11. It seems obvious to me for many reasons (ignoring the main one that it was the right thing to do even if the policy needs adjusting IMO).
Doing it early on reinforces the idea (correct or not) that the financial situation is dire. This is Labour's core message for the Honeymoon period.
Doing it early as a prominent individual act also sends a signal about who Labour believes should be taking the hit when it comes to tax rises/benefit cuts.
Doing it early also allows them to judge the reaction and make possible adjustments in the budget in October if they get a stong backlash - for example the pension rises we are now expecting. I also suspect they will be taking a lot of interest in how much people are screaming to be able to judge how much they can get away with squeezing pips. It gives useful information for how to pitch the budget as a whole.
So I think Reeves has been quite astute on this point.
Re the Starmer interview - I am a little relieved to hear him talk about reform for the NHS rather than just the spending trap (though he did allude to that also). This is the sort of thinking he does need to be getting out there. I am still, from his early actions, very unconvinced he has what it takes to really take on some of the vested interests and get meaningful reform through - but at least the topic is on the table.
The worse aspect of the May/Johnson/Sunak government was the unconservative belief that a problem could be solved by throwing money at it. The NHS has been soaked in money.
Has it?
How many comparable countries spend less on the public provision of healthcare?
Even the Americans spend more, most of it landing with the big pharma and healthcare companies, who then channel it back to the political parties….
The cue for me to do the Sunday Rawnsley, while I am still in bed waiting for the sun to come up:
It was an Anyone But The Conservatives election back in July. Labour won it by being the most preferred of the Anyones and secured its victory with a mammoth parliamentary majority because its campaign was very well targeted and support was efficiently distributed. So it is not accurate to say that the country has already fallen out of love with Labour; the country was never in love with Labour in the first place.
One of the reasons that this [fuel] furore has become potent is that left, right and centre can all find reasons to oppose the cut.
[After Rishi], Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing when the Lib Dem leader showcased a real-life example of what it would mean for the family finances of a carer whose income was just a few hundred pounds above the cut-off for continuing to qualify for the payment. Sir Ed received an unrebarbative response from Sir Keir. His emollient tone to his fellow knight had me wondering whether the prime minister is already preparing himself to move in the direction of a compromise. It is the mood among Labour MPs that is being anxiously monitored by their whips.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer. The saving to the exchequer will be around £1.5bn, not a trivial sum, but only about a hundredth of the total spend on pensioner benefits in the last financial year.
Many now think that we are heading towards some kind of U-turn, probably not immediately, but more likely when Ms Reeves unveils the budget at the end of October. The question then becomes how a retreat can be conducted without weakening the authority of the chancellor and the prime minister.
She won’t cancel the cut. My hunch is that she will eventually make a partial retreat which assuages the impact on the group about whom Labour MPs are most bothered: pensioners who don’t qualify or claim the credit and for whom this change will mean hardship. Then she and the prime minister will have to figure out how to make the U-turn elegant rather than embarrassing.
Just interested in the interest of political fairness, why did you edit out this part out
Adopting a hitherto concealed persona as a champion of the poor, Rishi Sunak drew a little blood at the most recent prime minister’s questions by demanding where was the justice in giving a pay rise of almost £10,000 to well-remunerated train drivers and removing the fuel support for low-income pensioners living on just £13,000 a year. Tory MPs, who don’t have much to smile about these days, enjoyed themselves, baying “Shame!”.
Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing ............................................................
Because it was a detail trivial to Rawnsley’s argument, whereas the Davey reference points towards a possible compromise. The art of editing is cutting out irrelevant padding and summarising the core thrust of the argument.
It was unnecessary to edit it out and as a matter of interest I assume you support the Lib Dems opposition to the policy
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
I wouldn't go that far but placing it somewhere else in Downing Street seems fine
The issue is mentioning that it's been done in the first place. Starmer thinks it makes him look strong but in fact it makes him weak.
I think you might be overanalysing it just a teensy weensy little bit
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pedantry alert: better off pensioners do pay income tax, but the general point stands.
The most efficient way to transfer yet more wealth from workers to the elderly would be, say, to reprieve all the WFA recipients except the higher rate taxpayers, and recover the shortfall by hiking national insurance, which the retired don't pay. I don't expect that to happen either, since the commitment on tax rates also extends to NI, but if the Government does buckle on Winter fuel payments then it will be instructive to see how the hole in the budget is plugged. In some way that doesn't affect the elderly, I'd imagine.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
But not NI. And barely any tax on their savings income.
Why all the confected outrage about the Thatch portrait? It’s a bloody awful painting and few in their right mind would want it glaring down on them when they are trying to work. Stick it in the garage.
I wouldn't go that far but placing it somewhere else in Downing Street seems fine
The issue is mentioning that it's been done in the first place. Starmer thinks it makes him look strong but in fact it makes him weak.
I think you might be overanalysing it just a teensy weensy little bit
So why did he announce it or have it announced....
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It’s the easiest, laziest thing in the world to argue for the retention of the universal WFA. Reeves should stand her ground.
Someone asked why it was that she announced getting rid of WFA as soon as she got into No 11. It seems obvious to me for many reasons (ignoring the main one that it was the right thing to do even if the policy needs adjusting IMO).
Doing it early on reinforces the idea (correct or not) that the financial situation is dire. This is Labour's core message for the Honeymoon period.
Doing it early as a prominent individual act also sends a signal about who Labour believes should be taking the hit when it comes to tax rises/benefit cuts.
Doing it early also allows them to judge the reaction and make possible adjustments in the budget in October if they get a stong backlash - for example the pension rises we are now expecting. I also suspect they will be taking a lot of interest in how much people are screaming to be able to judge how much they can get away with squeezing pips. It gives useful information for how to pitch the budget as a whole.
So I think Reeves has been quite astute on this point.
The cue for me to do the Sunday Rawnsley, while I am still in bed waiting for the sun to come up:
It was an Anyone But The Conservatives election back in July. Labour won it by being the most preferred of the Anyones and secured its victory with a mammoth parliamentary majority because its campaign was very well targeted and support was efficiently distributed. So it is not accurate to say that the country has already fallen out of love with Labour; the country was never in love with Labour in the first place.
One of the reasons that this [fuel] furore has become potent is that left, right and centre can all find reasons to oppose the cut.
[After Rishi], Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing when the Lib Dem leader showcased a real-life example of what it would mean for the family finances of a carer whose income was just a few hundred pounds above the cut-off for continuing to qualify for the payment. Sir Ed received an unrebarbative response from Sir Keir. His emollient tone to his fellow knight had me wondering whether the prime minister is already preparing himself to move in the direction of a compromise. It is the mood among Labour MPs that is being anxiously monitored by their whips.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer. The saving to the exchequer will be around £1.5bn, not a trivial sum, but only about a hundredth of the total spend on pensioner benefits in the last financial year.
Many now think that we are heading towards some kind of U-turn, probably not immediately, but more likely when Ms Reeves unveils the budget at the end of October. The question then becomes how a retreat can be conducted without weakening the authority of the chancellor and the prime minister.
She won’t cancel the cut. My hunch is that she will eventually make a partial retreat which assuages the impact on the group about whom Labour MPs are most bothered: pensioners who don’t qualify or claim the credit and for whom this change will mean hardship. Then she and the prime minister will have to figure out how to make the U-turn elegant rather than embarrassing.
Just interested in the interest of political fairness, why did you edit out this part out
Adopting a hitherto concealed persona as a champion of the poor, Rishi Sunak drew a little blood at the most recent prime minister’s questions by demanding where was the justice in giving a pay rise of almost £10,000 to well-remunerated train drivers and removing the fuel support for low-income pensioners living on just £13,000 a year. Tory MPs, who don’t have much to smile about these days, enjoyed themselves, baying “Shame!”.
Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing ............................................................
Because it was a detail trivial to Rawnsley’s argument, whereas the Davey reference points towards a possible compromise. The art of editing is cutting out irrelevant padding and summarising the core thrust of the argument.
It was unnecessary to edit it out and as a matter of interest I assume you support the Lib Dems opposition to the policy
No, aside from the political kickback, the policy is a sensible one. And unless you want me to cut and paste the entire article, which wouldn’t be welcome, cutting out the trivial padding is simply good editing.
“Knife attacks happen almost daily, 2 gang rapes happen every day on average, the majority of the perpetrators are young migrants who are entirely disrespectful of women. "This is the reality and we must end it."
Nigel Farage? Mme Le Pen?
No, the likely next Chancellor of Germany
These are huge shifts and the British government will soon look very exposed on the crumbling Woke left
One of the key misconceptions in Western politics is that the baby boomers are the drivers of reactionary politics and that as they die off, we'll bask in a progressive utopia. In reality it's almost exactly the reverse, particularly on the continent.
Indeed. As I’ve been predicting on this site for some time, we are about to see an epochal move to the right on migration/asylum/culture
Because the alternative, if you are a democrat politician, is actual Nazis in power. As we see in Thuringia
The voters are speaking, plainly
They’re the largest party in Thuringia rather than in power aren’t they?
"I never ever thought I would write this but England deserve to lose this, just for their sheer arrogance and lack of respect for Sri Lanka. Hopefully,they might learn a lesson.
“Knife attacks happen almost daily, 2 gang rapes happen every day on average, the majority of the perpetrators are young migrants who are entirely disrespectful of women. "This is the reality and we must end it."
Nigel Farage? Mme Le Pen?
No, the likely next Chancellor of Germany
These are huge shifts and the British government will soon look very exposed on the crumbling Woke left
One of the key misconceptions in Western politics is that the baby boomers are the drivers of reactionary politics and that as they die off, we'll bask in a progressive utopia. In reality it's almost exactly the reverse, particularly on the continent.
Indeed. As I’ve been predicting on this site for some time, we are about to see an epochal move to the right on migration/asylum/culture
Because the alternative, if you are a democrat politician, is actual Nazis in power. As we see in Thuringia
The voters are speaking, plainly
They’re the largest party in Thuringia rather than in power aren’t they?
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It’s the easiest, laziest thing in the world to argue for the retention of the universal WFA. Reeves should stand her ground.
Someone asked why it was that she announced getting rid of WFA as soon as she got into No 11. It seems obvious to me for many reasons (ignoring the main one that it was the right thing to do even if the policy needs adjusting IMO).
Doing it early on reinforces the idea (correct or not) that the financial situation is dire. This is Labour's core message for the Honeymoon period.
Doing it early as a prominent individual act also sends a signal about who Labour believes should be taking the hit when it comes to tax rises/benefit cuts.
Doing it early also allows them to judge the reaction and make possible adjustments in the budget in October if they get a stong backlash - for example the pension rises we are now expecting. I also suspect they will be taking a lot of interest in how much people are screaming to be able to judge how much they can get away with squeezing pips. It gives useful information for how to pitch the budget as a whole.
So I think Reeves has been quite astute on this point.
And given the gap between government income and expenditure (thanks Jeremy!), we ain't seen nothing yet. There are cows a lot more sacred than this that are booked in at the abattoir. It's going to take a while to acclimatise Labour MPs to what they are going to have to vote for.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
Yes but you are calling for more income tax while retaining a universal freebie, aren’t you?
I support it being withdrawn from the wealthy, but no matter it has been badly handled as you can see from the Guardian comment piece and it seems virtually all the opposition and some labour mps will vote against it
Unless either candidate has a catastrophic performance on Tuesday I doubt it will make much difference.
Voters have largely made up their minds, Harris has the edge but it will likely come down to who wins Pennsylvania and Georgia. Trump needs to win both, Harris at least one to win the EC
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
But they’re not “giving it to train drivers” are they. That’s just tabloid speak. Not least because the actual amounts are vastly different from each other, but also because, at least in paper, the pay rises come from TOC budgets. If someone paying for them, it’s train passengers.
Not the way it works. The franchise system set up in 1993 was scrapped in 2020. Now those railways still with private operators are run on a management contract basis and the fares do not go to the operators but to the Government. This was a fall out from Covid. And of course 5 of the 15 franchises are directly run by the Government now. So yes, the tax payer is likely going to be the one picking up the tab.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
But not NI. And barely any tax on their savings income.
I have long been a supporter of working pensioners paying NI
The cue for me to do the Sunday Rawnsley, while I am still in bed waiting for the sun to come up:
It was an Anyone But The Conservatives election back in July. Labour won it by being the most preferred of the Anyones and secured its victory with a mammoth parliamentary majority because its campaign was very well targeted and support was efficiently distributed. So it is not accurate to say that the country has already fallen out of love with Labour; the country was never in love with Labour in the first place.
One of the reasons that this [fuel] furore has become potent is that left, right and centre can all find reasons to oppose the cut.
[After Rishi], Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing when the Lib Dem leader showcased a real-life example of what it would mean for the family finances of a carer whose income was just a few hundred pounds above the cut-off for continuing to qualify for the payment. Sir Ed received an unrebarbative response from Sir Keir. His emollient tone to his fellow knight had me wondering whether the prime minister is already preparing himself to move in the direction of a compromise. It is the mood among Labour MPs that is being anxiously monitored by their whips.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer. The saving to the exchequer will be around £1.5bn, not a trivial sum, but only about a hundredth of the total spend on pensioner benefits in the last financial year.
Many now think that we are heading towards some kind of U-turn, probably not immediately, but more likely when Ms Reeves unveils the budget at the end of October. The question then becomes how a retreat can be conducted without weakening the authority of the chancellor and the prime minister.
She won’t cancel the cut. My hunch is that she will eventually make a partial retreat which assuages the impact on the group about whom Labour MPs are most bothered: pensioners who don’t qualify or claim the credit and for whom this change will mean hardship. Then she and the prime minister will have to figure out how to make the U-turn elegant rather than embarrassing.
Just interested in the interest of political fairness, why did you edit out this part out
Adopting a hitherto concealed persona as a champion of the poor, Rishi Sunak drew a little blood at the most recent prime minister’s questions by demanding where was the justice in giving a pay rise of almost £10,000 to well-remunerated train drivers and removing the fuel support for low-income pensioners living on just £13,000 a year. Tory MPs, who don’t have much to smile about these days, enjoyed themselves, baying “Shame!”.
Sir Ed Davey was the more piercing ............................................................
Because it was a detail trivial to Rawnsley’s argument, whereas the Davey reference points towards a possible compromise. The art of editing is cutting out irrelevant padding and summarising the core thrust of the argument.
It was unnecessary to edit it out and as a matter of interest I assume you support the Lib Dems opposition to the policy
No, aside from the political kickback, the policy is a sensible one. And unless you want me to cut and paste the entire article, which wouldn’t be welcome, cutting out the trivial padding is simply good editing.
The part you cut was the part I reinstated for fairness
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
Yes but you are calling for more income tax while retaining a universal freebie, aren’t you?
I support it being withdrawn from the wealthy, but no matter it has been badly handled as you can see from the Guardian comment piece and it seems virtually all the opposition and some labour mps will vote against it
Talk me through the logic there.
The Guardian are unhappy about everything every government does, it's their role in life.
And of course all opposition MPs will oppose this move; it's their job and there's nothing in it for them to support it.
And if you want a different cut-off, where and how would you draw the line?
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
The rookie mistake was doing it on its own, and not as part of a package. Say, withdraw it as the next triple lock increase goes in. Add some bits and bobs for poorer pensioners at the same time.
OT Last day of the Paralympics so the medals table won't change much. We will still be second best under Keir Starmer.
1. China 94 gold medals 2. Dear Old Blighty 47 3. Land of the Free (except healthcare) 36 4. ex-Holland 26 5. Pizza and pasta 24 6. The beautiful game 23 7. Slava Ukraini 21 8. Aux Armes (& gilets jaunes) Citoyens 19 9. Land down under, girt by sea 18 10. Japan 14
The sad position being Ukraine. They have so many people who qualify for the Paralympics these days.
With Taliban IEDs increasing the pool of talent that Team GB and Team USA get to draw from.
I was never a fan of personal injury work and one of the reasons was that it seemed to positively reward negative behaviour and disincentivise positive steps. When I was training as an advocate I had a claim for a female soldier who had lost most of her right leg in an accident in Afghanistan. There was some negligence involved. She had been an ambitious soldier and may well have lost a great career with a significant loss of earnings claim.
Instead she just got on with life. She qualified as a rower for the disability Olympics and medalled. She went back to school and used her intellect to build a new career for herself in the army. This cost her at least a couple of hundred thousand pounds in damages. She was crystal clear it was worth every penny. I was lost in admiration.
Which is why Jimmy Carr was right. The determination from so many disabled forces and veterans, to do something positive with themselves despite life-changing injuries, is an utter inspiration to the rest of us.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
Yes but you are calling for more income tax while retaining a universal freebie, aren’t you?
I support it being withdrawn from the wealthy, but no matter it has been badly handled as you can see from the Guardian comment piece and it seems virtually all the opposition and some labour mps will vote against it
Talk me through the logic there.
The Guardian are unhappy about everything every government does, it's their role in life.
And of course all opposition MPs will oppose this move; it's their job and there's nothing in it for them to support it.
And if you want a different cut-off, where and how would you draw the line?
Some have suggested making it subject to tax, others have suggested increasing the income cut off point, and even restricting it to low council tax bands
I do not expect Reeves to change it but she has created a storm of opposition which I now believe has extended to the TUC
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
The rookie mistake was doing it on its own, and not as part of a package. Say, withdraw it as the next triple lock increase goes in. Add some bits and bobs for poorer pensioners at the same time.
Kind of wondering if it was some sort of marker. So other folk don't moan so much about what is to come. There is a cohort of pensioners who, as a group, haven't voted for the loser in an election in their entire lives before. Gonna have to get used to it I'm afraid.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Going to be a profitable year for human rights lawyers and tax dodge agents financial advisers.
What this will highlight is the appalling lack of SEND provision in local councils, with parents forced to pay or rely on charity for their children to get the education they deserve.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
But not NI. And barely any tax on their savings income.
I have long been a supporter of working pensioners paying NI
Why not all pensioners? On all income, along with everybody else.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
But they’re not “giving it to train drivers” are they. That’s just tabloid speak. Not least because the actual amounts are vastly different from each other, but also because, at least in paper, the pay rises come from TOC budgets. If someone paying for them, it’s train passengers.
Not the way it works. The franchise system set up in 1993 was scrapped in 2020. Now those railways still with private operators are run on a management contract basis and the fares do not go to the operators but to the Government. This was a fall out from Covid. And of course 5 of the 15 franchises are directly run by the Government now. So yes, the tax payer is likely going to be the one picking up the tab.
Regardless of ownership would that not imply an increase in subsidy, which isn’t how it is supposed to work ordinarily - hence the arguments over fare rises every year that we get on both private and public (eg TfL) networks?
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Oh, so it was never actually about challenging bad law, and all about bashing politicians with blue rosettes. Who’d have thought that?
Presumably we’ll now see human rights lawyers all in favour of deporting people, and shortly witness planes taking off every week to return illegals from whence they came.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
Oh, so it was never actually about challenging bad law, and all about bashing politicians with blue rosettes. Who’d have thought that?
Presumably we’ll now see human rights lawyers all in favour of deporting people, and shortly witness planes taking off every week to return illegals from whence they came.
No, the latter will continue.
A positive legacy of the Windrush scandal is that lawyers are going to ensure the wrong people aren't deported.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
If this Government was going to soak anyone, the first priority should always have been pensioners. They've been protected all the way through the last fifteen years in a way no other section of society has, and have been greatly enriched relative to working people as a deliberate matter of public policy. They're also the bedrock of what's left of the Tory vote.
What the Government may have done wrong here is to incorrectly calibrate the threshold at which the payment was withdrawn, and now they are stuck with a policy with a cliff edge that has initiated a lot of wailing from just about managing olds (a group with public sympathy that will also include some of the minority of non-owner occupier pensioners who are more amenable to voting Labour.) Nor can they extend the ranks of those eligible for the payments without the risk of looking weak and caving to the most cosseted fraction of the population at the first sign of resistance, having already dug their heels in and point blank refused to repeal the two child cap, of course. It'll look like sweeties for the old and a shit sandwich for the young, i.e. continuity Toryism, because that's exactly what it will be.
I think Reeves either has to stick to her guns now, or find a means to exempt more old people from this cut by getting other, better off old people to fund the policy. The obvious way to do this is through hiking inheritance tax. If there's one way guaranteed to get the Torygraph, the Mail and the rest of the entitled pensioner press howling louder than taking a benefit off olds, it's blocking the unfettered transmission of inherited wealth, but these interests have to be faced down and beaten at some point so the Government might as well get it over and done with now. The nation's unproductive, static residential property wealth is an immense potential gold mine for the Treasury, and it's past time the pickaxe was wielded.
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
Why do you advocate more taxes on working people and freebies for those who aren’t working?
Pensioners pay tax as well
But not NI. And barely any tax on their savings income.
I have long been a supporter of working pensioners paying NI
Why not all pensioners? On all income, along with everybody else.
That is an open debate to be had but I doubt any party will propose it
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
If this Government was going to soak anyone, the first priority should always have been pensioners. They've been protected all the way through the last fifteen years in a way no other section of society has, and have been greatly enriched relative to working people as a deliberate matter of public policy. They're also the bedrock of what's left of the Tory vote.
What the Government may have done wrong here is to incorrectly calibrate the threshold at which the payment was withdrawn, and now they are stuck with a policy with a cliff edge that has initiated a lot of wailing from just about managing olds (a group with public sympathy that will also include some of the minority of non-owner occupier pensioners who are more amenable to voting Labour.) Nor can they extend the ranks of those eligible for the payments without the risk of looking weak and caving to the most cosseted fraction of the population at the first sign of resistance, having already dug their heels in and point blank refused to repeal the two child cap, of course. It'll look like sweeties for the old and a shit sandwich for the young, i.e. continuity Toryism, because that's exactly what it will be.
I think Reeves either has to stick to her guns now, or find a means to exempt more old people from this cut by getting other, better off old people to fund the policy. The obvious way to do this is through hiking inheritance tax. If there's one way guaranteed to get the Torygraph, the Mail and the rest of the entitled pensioner press howling louder than taking a benefit off olds, it's blocking the unfettered transmission of inherited wealth, but these interests have to be faced down and beaten at some point so the Government might as well get it over and done with now. The nation's unproductive, static residential property wealth is an immense potential gold mine for the Treasury, and it's past time the pickaxe was wielded.
Inheritance Tax is an unusually hated tax considering how few pay it. You might be surprised about the kickback from those who think they might be (or aspire to be in a position to) impacted by it.
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The biggest mistake labour made was to rule out rises in income tax
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
It’s the easiest, laziest thing in the world to argue for the retention of the universal WFA. Reeves should stand her ground.
I do like the idea of being more generous (may be tying it to the higher rate threshold or something) and paying for it with changes to inheritance tax though…
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Stuff like this makes it difficult to make tough decisions, this is less tough, more stupid in the harm it does to credibility vs the savings it achieves. It was a rookie mistake to preannounce, it a mistake to try and make the saving mid year, a mistake to facilitate the conflation with train driver increases.
Pensioners dont easily forget. A former MP was telling me that right up until the end he would get regular emails from angry retired people about losing the free TV license, that decision by the BBC was taken in 2020.
Most MPs are not fully up and running yet, but I'm pretty sure they'll have been inundated by phone calls (if they have lines yet), emails and letters about this. And it wont stop. If we have a bad winter this will bit them on the bum hard.
If they really wanted to make a series of tough decisions like this, they should have a list of all the really hard ones they want to make and rip that plaster off on the floor of the commons in the budget statement.
Rookie mistake, and one that they've doubled down on.
The rookie mistake would be to take on the most powerful lobby group in the UK, pensioners, and not face them down. It was possibly a mistake to take them on in the first place, but that's arguable. They are supposedly making tough decisions.
If this Government was going to soak anyone, the first priority should always have been pensioners. They've been protected all the way through the last fifteen years in a way no other section of society has, and have been greatly enriched relative to working people as a deliberate matter of public policy. They're also the bedrock of what's left of the Tory vote.
What the Government may have done wrong here is to incorrectly calibrate the threshold at which the payment was withdrawn, and now they are stuck with a policy with a cliff edge that has initiated a lot of wailing from just about managing olds (a group with public sympathy that will also include some of the minority of non-owner occupier pensioners who are more amenable to voting Labour.) Nor can they extend the ranks of those eligible for the payments without the risk of looking weak and caving to the most cosseted fraction of the population at the first sign of resistance, having already dug their heels in and point blank refused to repeal the two child cap, of course. It'll look like sweeties for the old and a shit sandwich for the young, i.e. continuity Toryism, because that's exactly what it will be.
I think Reeves either has to stick to her guns now, or find a means to exempt more old people from this cut by getting other, better off old people to fund the policy. The obvious way to do this is through hiking inheritance tax. If there's one way guaranteed to get the Torygraph, the Mail and the rest of the entitled pensioner press howling louder than taking a benefit off olds, it's blocking the unfettered transmission of inherited wealth, but these interests have to be faced down and beaten at some point so the Government might as well get it over and done with now. The nation's unproductive, static residential property wealth is an immense potential gold mine for the Treasury, and it's past time the pickaxe was wielded.
If CGT as predicted does rise to 45% the absurdity of maintaining a 0% rate for main residence plus a £325k inheritance tax threshold is unsustainable.
Taxing people who invest in the productive economy at 45% while people who sit on totally unproductive housing wealth get taxed at 0% when they sell it and get to pass on hundreds of thousands tax free sticks in my craw. To the point where I will pay absolutely nothing, either by flouncing out of the country or deferring any sale until the rate comes back down.
I get slagged off on this site for complaining about CGT, while pensioners - the most coddled, cosseted generation in history - who bought houses for a couple of grand before I was even born, get to sit on massive gains and total tax exemptions for capital gains and six figure tax exemptions for inheritance. And they have the gall to bitch and moan about losing a £300 perk while plenty of working age families have gone cold and miserable the last few winters. As far as I'm concerned they can suck it up and shiver with the rest of us.
People on low incomes (of any age) should get a means tested allowance, the country doesn't owe it to throw money at anyone over the age of 68 just for being 68. Pensioners finally getting a taste of how the rest of the country lives these days. Good.
“Knife attacks happen almost daily, 2 gang rapes happen every day on average, the majority of the perpetrators are young migrants who are entirely disrespectful of women. "This is the reality and we must end it."
Nigel Farage? Mme Le Pen?
No, the likely next Chancellor of Germany
These are huge shifts and the British government will soon look very exposed on the crumbling Woke left
One of the key misconceptions in Western politics is that the baby boomers are the drivers of reactionary politics and that as they die off, we'll bask in a progressive utopia. In reality it's almost exactly the reverse, particularly on the continent.
I do think that the baby boomers are the drivers of reactionary politics in the UK, but I don't know what will happen when they are mostly dead in 2040. A 15yr planning horizon is far enough...
It is only since the election that it has been clocked that a commitment to protect the payment, made in the four previous Labour manifestos, was absent from the one put to the country this summer.
…suggests (confirms!) that the Tory election machine wasn’t much good. When the manifesto came out someone in their HQ should have been line-checking it against the previous one, looking for issues like this, which could have been used effectively during the campaign.
And for all the noise, the plan remains Repulsive... But Right. The recent above-inflation increases in the basic pension ought to render the WFA redundant as a separate payment. The pension credit line isn't perfect as a cutoff, but it's the only one that's readily available. Oppositions should oppose things, but governments should mostly ignore them.
Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times has the rebellion at less than two dozen abstentions, no votes against, smaller than the rebellion on the two child benefit cap. Which, frankly, was a meaner way to save a similar amount of money.
Gordon Brown handed pensioners a 75p per week rise and it stayed with him
You can be certain the media will focus on the elderly shivering in their homes this winter, and of course labour will win the vote next week but the optics of taking WFA away from pensioners and giving it to train drivers is terrible
All of which is politics as normal, you know that.
Any policy worthy of the name has downsides, and it's the job of the media and the opposition to flag them. And the job of government to do the things they judge right anyway.
(See, for example, the two child benefit cap.)
And as a thought experiment... Imagine the WFA didn't currently exist, and Starmer announced its introduction. I hope you would be as cross as anyone at the waste of money on a badly-aimed gimmick.
As a thought experiment, didn't we just have a couple of winters with subsidised fuel for everyone? Who was furious?
Comments
In the present climate 1p on tax and maybe 2p on highest rate would have been far less controversial and raised many more billions than the 1.5 billion the WFA will and even that saving will evaporate as pensioners opt into pension credit
My theory is this was a deliberate attempt to be clever. They knew it would cause a bit of a stink but that also meant that the row would also focus attention on the message Labour aides really want stuck in the public's heads: the Tories left a £22b hole.
I reckon they did not expect such a bitter kick back on this one.
Too clever by half I reckon. But we will only know when the diaries are published in ten years time.
How many comparable countries spend less on the public provision of healthcare?
Robin in Coventry"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/c255wdv8vlqt#LiveReporting
I agree with him.
Any policy worthy of the name has downsides, and it's the job of the media and the opposition to flag them. And the job of government to do the things they judge right anyway.
(See, for example, the two child benefit cap.)
And as a thought experiment... Imagine the WFA didn't currently exist, and Starmer announced its introduction. I hope you would be as cross as anyone at the waste of money on a badly-aimed gimmick.
That's the common theme. Denial.
Deal?
Doing it early on reinforces the idea (correct or not) that the financial situation is dire. This is Labour's core message for the Honeymoon period.
Doing it early as a prominent individual act also sends a signal about who Labour believes should be taking the hit when it comes to tax rises/benefit cuts.
Doing it early also allows them to judge the reaction and make possible adjustments in the budget in October if they get a stong backlash - for example the pension rises we are now expecting. I also suspect they will be taking a lot of interest in how much people are screaming to be able to judge how much they can get away with squeezing pips. It gives useful information for how to pitch the budget as a whole.
So I think Reeves has been quite astute on this point.
The most efficient way to transfer yet more wealth from workers to the elderly would be, say, to reprieve all the WFA recipients except the higher rate taxpayers, and recover the shortfall by hiking national insurance, which the retired don't pay. I don't expect that to happen either, since the commitment on tax rates also extends to NI, but if the Government does buckle on Winter fuel payments then it will be instructive to see how the hole in the budget is plugged. In some way that doesn't affect the elderly, I'd imagine.
It's patently obvious
Has Robin never heard of Bazball?
Voters have largely made up their minds, Harris has the edge but it will likely come down to who wins Pennsylvania and Georgia. Trump needs to win both, Harris at least one to win the EC
Asking “why” someone offers you a compliment is sensible. Doing it out loud to their face is awkward.
The Guardian are unhappy about everything every government does, it's their role in life.
And of course all opposition MPs will oppose this move; it's their job and there's nothing in it for them to support it.
And if you want a different cut-off, where and how would you draw the line?
Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.
Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.
The letter says so-called SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children risk being forced out of private school if their parents can no longer afford higher fees, with the state sector unable to meet their more demanding educational needs.
It marks the first official legal challenge to Labour’s plans which have come under heavy criticism. Further legal claims in relation to military families and those who attend faith schools may also be put forward at a later date, The Telegraph understands....
...Sinclairslaw will also today launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the legal challenge, with fears the cost of litigation could reach several hundred thousand of pounds.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/private-schools-tax-raid-high-court-challenge-human-rights/
I do not expect Reeves to change it but she has created a storm of opposition which I now believe has extended to the TUC
So other folk don't moan so much about what is to come.
There is a cohort of pensioners who, as a group, haven't voted for the loser in an election in their entire lives before.
Gonna have to get used to it I'm afraid.
https://goodlawproject.org/good-law-practice-to-close/
human rightslawyers andtax dodge agentsfinancial advisers.What this will highlight is the appalling lack of SEND provision in local councils, with parents forced to pay or rely on charity for their children to get the education they deserve.
Presumably we’ll now see human rights lawyers all in favour of deporting people, and shortly witness planes taking off every week to return illegals from whence they came.
A positive legacy of the Windrush scandal is that lawyers are going to ensure the wrong people aren't deported.
What the Government may have done wrong here is to incorrectly calibrate the threshold at which the payment was withdrawn, and now they are stuck with a policy with a cliff edge that has initiated a lot of wailing from just about managing olds (a group with public sympathy that will also include some of the minority of non-owner occupier pensioners who are more amenable to voting Labour.) Nor can they extend the ranks of those eligible for the payments without the risk of looking weak and caving to the most cosseted fraction of the population at the first sign of resistance, having already dug their heels in and point blank refused to repeal the two child cap, of course. It'll look like sweeties for the old and a shit sandwich for the young, i.e. continuity Toryism, because that's exactly what it will be.
I think Reeves either has to stick to her guns now, or find a means to exempt more old people from this cut by getting other, better off old people to fund the policy. The obvious way to do this is through hiking inheritance tax. If there's one way guaranteed to get the Torygraph, the Mail and the rest of the entitled pensioner press howling louder than taking a benefit off olds, it's blocking the unfettered transmission of inherited wealth, but these interests have to be faced down and beaten at some point so the Government might as well get it over and done with now. The nation's unproductive, static residential property wealth is an immense potential gold mine for the Treasury, and it's past time the pickaxe was wielded.
I would just add I understand other legal challenges to the vat on private schools are in the pipeline
NEW THREAD
Taxing people who invest in the productive economy at 45% while people who sit on totally unproductive housing wealth get taxed at 0% when they sell it and get to pass on hundreds of thousands tax free sticks in my craw. To the point where I will pay absolutely nothing, either by flouncing out of the country or deferring any sale until the rate comes back down.
I get slagged off on this site for complaining about CGT, while pensioners - the most coddled, cosseted generation in history - who bought houses for a couple of grand before I was even born, get to sit on massive gains and total tax exemptions for capital gains and six figure tax exemptions for inheritance. And they have the gall to bitch and moan about losing a £300 perk while plenty of working age families have gone cold and miserable the last few winters. As far as I'm concerned they can suck it up and shiver with the rest of us.
People on low incomes (of any age) should get a means tested allowance, the country doesn't owe it to throw money at anyone over the age of 68 just for being 68. Pensioners finally getting a taste of how the rest of the country lives these days. Good.