Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
My son and daughter-in-law used to work for F1 Management,and came into regular contact with Bernie. Gave them quite a substantial wedding present.
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
Halve the overseas aid budget and remove any Country that's either a G20 Member or a growing economy over the past 5 years.
Take the remaining 50% and keep it as purely a "Disaster / Emergency" GENUINE NEED Fund
That's ball park £13bn quid...
But the overseas aid budget it also there to go towards our share of the Climate Reparations ($350 Billion annually) as agreed at the recent COP.
Also any cutting of the Overseas budget will see a huge amount of pushback from Charities and NGO's who are the beneficiaries of it when given money from it to manage issues and the like to take their cut.
Also there is the money to be found for the WASPI women, we had leaders of 8 parties demanding these people get their compensation. That will be more than £10 Billion.
Put Trident on the Overseas Aid Budget.
“Offering instant urban redevelopment opportunities, world wide.”
Fairly accurate, as it is overseas aid - to America.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
Its not difficult to imagine. Mens pension ages are increasing each decade, will need to increase further and quicker, and I suspect will be means tested by the time I (wont) receive mine.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
My son and daughter-in-law used to work for F1 Management,and came into regular contact with Bernie. Gave them quite a substantial wedding present.
My son went to elementary school with Tamara's kid. Different grade, so they weren't friends, but she used to come to Kuyam (new age assembly) wearing the most ridiculously expensive handbags and clothes.
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
My son and daughter-in-law used to work for F1 Management,and came into regular contact with Bernie. Gave them quite a substantial wedding present.
And yet he disowned his daughter when she married the 'wrong' man (disowned in he would not see her or the kids; he did provide for them AIUI.)
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
I seem to recall Reform were roundly mocked before the election for a proposal in their manifesto very much like this.
I suspect that the this will hit the usual problem with trying to find savings in bureaucratic organisations - I.E. it won't be the budget for the "staff team building and social event co-ordinators" that gets cut, but instead the only way to make the numbers add up will be closing children's cancer ward... Repeat x10,000 until the cuts are too politically toxic to happen.
TV tax frozen in 2010. What had to go? Live EFL football.
Seems an unusual example of a good budget cutting decision AFAICS. The cost of broadcasting football is astronomical.
For Sky, it is. BBC, I think, were subletting (I think that's right) some games. I think the deal was 10 Championship games, an EFL Cup semi final (one leg of each?) and the EFL Cup final. Pulling the plug on that deal saved very little money. But it sent a message to the Tories: Cut our budget, and we'll ditch the popular stuff.
Same reason the RAF always open the spending review with scrapping the Red Arrows. It’s the only thing the vast majority of the public ever see of the RAF. Ignore that the Reds are famous worldwide and are a great recruiting tool for the service.
Standard operating procedure in many, many organisations
1) told to cut 2) come up with a cut that is absolutely unacceptable. 3) get the cuts withdrawn
The test of good management is to call out on 2)
Trouble is that often cuts are unacceptable. Most organisations are not doing things that are obviously extravagant and easy to cut. Imagine you are running John Lewis or Waitrose. What's the easy cut? Next year's advertising budget. What's the easy cut for the RAF? The Red Arrows because aerobatics are of no use against hostile MIGs. The Army?
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
My son and daughter-in-law used to work for F1 Management,and came into regular contact with Bernie. Gave them quite a substantial wedding present.
And yet he disowned his daughter when she married the 'wrong' man (disowned in he would not see her or the kids; he did provide for them AIUI.)
AIUI he though quite highly of d-i-l, who for a while worked in his office. Son was involved and indeed later responsible for, some fairly major broadcasting developments.
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
I seem to recall Reform were roundly mocked before the election for a proposal in their manifesto very much like this.
I suspect that the this will hit the usual problem with trying to find savings in bureaucratic organisations - I.E. it won't be the budget for the "staff team building and social event co-ordinators" that gets cut, but instead the only way to make the numbers add up will be closing children's cancer ward... Repeat x10,000 until the cuts are too politically toxic to happen.
TV tax frozen in 2010. What had to go? Live EFL football.
Seems an unusual example of a good budget cutting decision AFAICS. The cost of broadcasting football is astronomical.
For Sky, it is. BBC, I think, were subletting (I think that's right) some games. I think the deal was 10 Championship games, an EFL Cup semi final (one leg of each?) and the EFL Cup final. Pulling the plug on that deal saved very little money. But it sent a message to the Tories: Cut our budget, and we'll ditch the popular stuff.
Same reason the RAF always open the spending review with scrapping the Red Arrows. It’s the only thing the vast majority of the public ever see of the RAF. Ignore that the Reds are famous worldwide and are a great recruiting tool for the service.
Standard operating procedure in many, many organisations
1) told to cut 2) come up with a cut that is absolutely unacceptable. 3) get the cuts withdrawn
The test of good management is to call out on 2)
Trouble is that often cuts are unacceptable. Most organisations are not doing things that are obviously extravagant and easy to cut. Imagine you are running John Lewis or Waitrose. What's the easy cut? Next year's advertising budget. What's the easy cut for the RAF? The Red Arrows because aerobatics are of no use against hostile MIGs. The Army?
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
A friend of mine has a Ph.D. in concrete. His thesis had a more unintelligible title, but basically he knows a lot about concrete.
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
A friend of mine has a Ph.D. in concrete. His thesis had a more unintelligible title, but basically he knows a lot about concrete.
I know this will attract the usual jokes and comments, but concrete/cement is actually a fascinating material. Heck, even its history is fascinating (e.g. Roman pozzolanic cement. It's a part of engineering that is still as much art as science.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The change was first in a white paper in 1993.
The change was gradual and they have lost numerous legal challenges.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
A friend of mine has a Ph.D. in concrete. His thesis had a more unintelligible title, but basically he knows a lot about concrete.
I know this will attract the usual jokes and comments, but concrete/cement is actually a fascinating material. Heck, even its history is fascinating (e.g. Roman pozzolanic cement. It's a part of engineering that is still as much art as science.
A good friend of mine was doing a commercial proof before Lord Drummond Young about concrete. He was examining a witness and the usual lunch time came and went. At 1.20 he suggested that might be a good place to break. His Lordship said, "gosh, is that the time, I was finding this so fascinating that I lost all track of time."
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Back in grey, grey, grey Devon after a trip up to London, where I drove Rose Tremain around to show her the Christmas lights, had THE most fabulously light sticky-toffee pudding cooked by a Labour MP and then during a lovely chat, agreed to show Dame Judie Dench a White-tailed Eagle before she finally loses her sight.
Oh, and got an invite for lunch at Sir Tim Rice's place.
Which was nice.
Sounds great, even though I hadn't a clue who Rose Tremain was. Context for all this stuff?
How are you going to get a white tailed eagle and Dame Judi Dench in the same place at the same time? I imagine DJD's calendar is pretty full and WTEs tend to be unreliable about keeping appointments. Are there any in Devon?
I don't care as it was a great story. @MarqueeMark was probably happy to promise DJD anything. Working out how to keep the promise comes later.
I would struggle to come up with that level of name dropping. Best I can do at the moment is we regularly borrow Richard Curtis and Emma Freud's beach hut.
I once met Bernie Ecclestone. I didn't realise who he was at first, and we discussed concrete for a few minutes. As we talked, I got a slow, dawning realisation that I knew this bloke. Only when the receptionist said his first name did it fully click. Somewhat surprisingly, he was very friendly, interested, and knowledgeable.
And no, I didn't ask him to bung me a Bernie...
I also met a fair few (over half, I think) of the F1 drivers from about 1994/5. Not Schumacher, sadly.
An interesting way to, er, cement your friendship.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
I seem to recall Reform were roundly mocked before the election for a proposal in their manifesto very much like this.
I suspect that the this will hit the usual problem with trying to find savings in bureaucratic organisations - I.E. it won't be the budget for the "staff team building and social event co-ordinators" that gets cut, but instead the only way to make the numbers add up will be closing children's cancer ward... Repeat x10,000 until the cuts are too politically toxic to happen.
TV tax frozen in 2010. What had to go? Live EFL football.
Seems an unusual example of a good budget cutting decision AFAICS. The cost of broadcasting football is astronomical.
For Sky, it is. BBC, I think, were subletting (I think that's right) some games. I think the deal was 10 Championship games, an EFL Cup semi final (one leg of each?) and the EFL Cup final. Pulling the plug on that deal saved very little money. But it sent a message to the Tories: Cut our budget, and we'll ditch the popular stuff.
Same reason the RAF always open the spending review with scrapping the Red Arrows. It’s the only thing the vast majority of the public ever see of the RAF. Ignore that the Reds are famous worldwide and are a great recruiting tool for the service.
The problem is retention not recruitment so the £10m/year or whatever is a total misallocation of resources if that is the justification. Also, there's supposed to be a war on and having 11 FJ pilots (who are all 2nd tour/QFIs) in RAFAT is just not logical. However, I agree it's politically impossible to scrap them.
What is interesting is the fate of their mounts. As it's impossible, for the same febrile reasons of fragile national vanity that makes getting rid difficult, for them to use a non-UK aircraft then the only possible succession plan is T2.
One very plausible scenario is Hawk T2 gets binned off in 2029 with 9 going to RAFAT and the rest into St. Athan. The RAF AJT training phase would then move to the IFTS in Italy.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
I'd take that trade.
In the book, many do, IIRC.
Complete with protestors from the Left, outside the clinic, over the ending of the welfare state.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
Discussion where? In bingo halls? Bus queues? You and I and everyone on PB follows politics. That's not normal. Most people are hard-pressed to name their own MP. Was there a widespread and sustained advertising campaign that would have reached the woman on the Clapham omnibus?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
If we do have some by elections this parliament it is certainly possible Reform could win some of them as UKIP won a few by elections from 2010-15
They won two, both with traitorous pig-dog defectors defector-incumbents.
Which was actually more than the usual by election winners the LDs won. The LDs only won one by election in the 2010 to 2015 parliament.
It is now Reform surging in the polls, whereas the LDs are unchanged in polling from July and less well placed to capitalise on the Labour government's unpopularity than Farage's party is
Whereas I am not disagreeing with you and I think you are right and if the by elections are in the right areas (and there are plenty of them) I think Reform will win by elections, primarily from Labour and possibly from the Conservatives.
However Reform does not have the LD by-election machine. They are trying to do so and they are getting the money and the members in numbers, but that is not what makes the LD by election machine. They succeed because of the targeting organisation which lends itself superbly to a by election and the type of members who are willing to travel and work relentlessly.
There are plenty of areas where the LDs would be the main challengers and will win by elections still if given the opportunity in this parliament.
But I think you are right and Reform could pick up some spectacular by election wins without that by election machine.
Reform don't have the LDs by election machine no but given they are now polling over 20% in most polls with Labour down 5-10% on July and the Tories and LDs little changed Reform could win by elections even if they don't put out a single leaflet or canvass a single house
Yes I agree and if it is in the right area (and as I said there are plenty of them). Although I think they would still have to campaign, but I suspect they could put up a decent showing anyway. Their leaflets (from what I saw at the GE) were very good. I suspect they could do a decent canvas and poster campaign. I suspect their GOTV would not match any of the other parties, but I think the margin would be enough that it doesn't matter.
Key also is there would be very little overlap between Reform and the LDs so there would be few if any areas where they would compete. A by election would either be a Reform target or a LD target, not both. I haven't looked it up but I suspect there are more opportunities for Reform.
Indeed white working class majority Labour seats or rural Tory seats are ideal Reform target territory in a by election, lower middle class Labour seats ideal Tory target territory and upper middle class Tory or Labour seats ideal LD target seats.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
So the five years difference in retirement ages between men and women, which lasted decades, was not unjust?
Governments need to change things occasionally. Often, there are winners and losers from these changes. They need to publicise the changes; but that doesn't mean putting a megaphone up to everybody's ears and shouting: "Are you aware of this change, it may effect you !!!! Are you sure ????"
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
More likely Soylent Green....
You will get your ration of free Soylent Green, starting from retirement….
asks people who they prefer out of Scholz and Merz to be next chancellor Scholz 43% Merz 45%
That Merz is only 2% ahead of the widely despised Scholz, who is leading a historically unpopular government, and whose party (on 15% in this poll) is almost 20% behind CDU/CSU in the polls, shows how unconvinced people are by Merz.
Does this point to the possibility of a serious polling miss when the time comes?
Probably not - German opinion polling (at least at the national level) is rarely far off. I also don't really see the polls changing massively before the election itself. Though last time the SPD did move from 3rd place 2 months before the election to 1st place in the election, so who knows? Unlikely to happen this time around, though I wouldn't be surprised if the SPD knock the AfD from 2nd place to 3rd place. But it will still very likely end up with the only options being a Union-led coalition with the SPD or a Union-led coalition with the Greens.
Merz if he wins would be the most rightwing German chancellor since WW2, no Merkel centrist is he.
Yet the deep unpopularity of the SPD led government as with so many incumbent governments at present gives him a real prospect of power at the next German election.
The CSU have now ruled out a coalition with the Greens so most likely it will be another CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition
One good thing about Merz is he is very pro Zelensky even if also otherwise traditional right conservative social conservative, small state and pro tighter border controls.
Indeed he has said he would provide Ukraine with more Taurus missiles if he takes power in Germany next year, which could help makeup for US cuts in military aid to Zelensky once Trump takes office and the GOP take control of both chambers of Congress
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
I'd take that trade.
I wouldn't, you may as well just be a robot
Why? If you don’t get more decrepit and are immune to illness, why does that make you a robot?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
Discussion where? In bingo halls? Bus queues? You and I and everyone on PB follows politics. That's not normal. Most people are hard-pressed to name their own MP. Was there a widespread and sustained advertising campaign that would have reached the woman on the Clapham omnibus?
Yes, as well as correspondence from the govt to affected people.
What PHSO found was that there was maladministration in 2005/6 and women would have had 28 months more notice had this not happened.
The courts found there was no legal duty for the govt to communicate state pension age changes either.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
So the five years difference in retirement ages between men and women, which lasted decades, was not unjust?
Governments need to change things occasionally. Often, there are winners and losers from these changes. They need to publicise the changes; but that doesn't mean putting a megaphone up to everybody's ears and shouting: "Are you aware of this change, it may effect you !!!! Are you sure ????"
If you won't read my post then there's no point in replying to it.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
I'd take that trade.
I wouldn't, you may as well just be a robot
Why? If you don’t get more decrepit and are immune to illness, why does that make you a robot?
Think middle age that lasts forever…
Middle age is bad enough as it is without lasting forever, I think I would take my chances with the good Lord
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
Not every year, but apparently they didn’t check in more than twenty.
Me too. Syria, all the way. You can do more good for the same expenditure. You can help set up structures that will have long-term benefits. You build good relationships with the new government. You increase the chance that 30,000 Syrian refugees in the UK can return home (surely something Goodwin is very keen on) and reduce the chance of more Syrians having to flee the country.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
You'd certainly have the incentive to save for the long term in that scenario. Imagine being able to experience the beneficial effects of compound interest over centuries?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The 1995 Pension Act was under John Major Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020 Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November). People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
It’s not, and there has to be an element of personal responsibility in all this. You can just assume what you are going to be entitled to, you have to actually look it up.
Look it up, and keep looking it up every year in case someone comes along and changes it. Oh, and look it up how? Should there have been queues to read primary legislation in every reference library in the land?
The increase in pension age were a topic of discussion from the 80s onward - across the Developed World, population pyramids couldn’t sustain the pensions funded from current taxation.
All of the valid comments and views on Pension age and future directions once again opens up a debate that has to be had.
Not for the faint hearted nor libertarians...
The progressive left utopia
Combine the complete benefits bill... No exceptions apart from acute sudden illness.
It would need to be graduated over a 20 to 30 year period.
Lifetime State Income
A set payment from 18 to grave. Calculated to give a pension, hard times payment to all, that can also be used as a savings, retirement, investment proposition.
Abolish state pension for those joining at 18
Freeze existing NI contributions at date over 18 fet receipt
Abolish Child benefit Abolish unemployment benefit Abolish all Credit top ups Abolish almost all sickness benefits Abolish all non means tested benefits Phased abolition of IHT Phased abolition if CGT
Abolish Council Tax Replace with a land tax based on square footage of property and acreage of land linked to average postcode property value
Effectively a state income for all to manage. Simplified streamlined
Offer a tax reduction to more wealthy people who may decide to opt out permanently of state income
At the same time introduce a one off wealth tax of 2% on all billionaires
Me too. Syria, all the way. You can do more good for the same expenditure. You can help set up structures that will have long-term benefits. You build good relationships with the new government. You increase the chance that 30,000 Syrian refugees in the UK can return home (surely something Goodwin is very keen on) and reduce the chance of more Syrians having to flee the country.
In the overall scheme of things £11 Million is a tiny amount of the govt budget. Syria all the way.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
So the five years difference in retirement ages between men and women, which lasted decades, was not unjust?
Governments need to change things occasionally. Often, there are winners and losers from these changes. They need to publicise the changes; but that doesn't mean putting a megaphone up to everybody's ears and shouting: "Are you aware of this change, it may effect you !!!! Are you sure ????"
If you won't read my post then there's no point in replying to it.
I did read it, and I think my response was valid and on topic?
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
It's claims like this that bankrupt a country.
The Govt just needs to tell them to do one.
Previous governments, and courts, already have.
Given that Reeves already seems to be in the Treasury's pocket, I'd expect the same from this one. Apart from anything else, it's going to be bloody difficult politically demanding restraint / cuts across much of the public sector in order to shovel (more) billions to wealthy pensioners.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
You'd certainly have the incentive to save for the long term in that scenario. Imagine being able to experience the beneficial effects of compound interest over centuries?
Yup. Earn *anything* above costs and inflation…
IIRC in the novel, society has largely collapsed and pensions are a pipe dream anyway.
asks people who they prefer out of Scholz and Merz to be next chancellor Scholz 43% Merz 45%
That Merz is only 2% ahead of the widely despised Scholz, who is leading a historically unpopular government, and whose party (on 15% in this poll) is almost 20% behind CDU/CSU in the polls, shows how unconvinced people are by Merz.
Does this point to the possibility of a serious polling miss when the time comes?
Probably not - German opinion polling (at least at the national level) is rarely far off. I also don't really see the polls changing massively before the election itself. Though last time the SPD did move from 3rd place 2 months before the election to 1st place in the election, so who knows? Unlikely to happen this time around, though I wouldn't be surprised if the SPD knock the AfD from 2nd place to 3rd place. But it will still very likely end up with the only options being a Union-led coalition with the SPD or a Union-led coalition with the Greens.
Merz if he wins would be the most rightwing German chancellor since WW2, no Merkel centrist is he.
Yet the deep unpopularity of the SPD led government as with so many incumbent governments at present gives him a real prospect of power at the next German election.
The CSU have now ruled out a coalition with the Greens so most likely it will be another CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition
One good thing about Merz is he is very pro Zelensky even if also otherwise traditional right conservative social conservative, small state and pro tighter border controls.
Indeed he has said he would provide Ukraine with more Taurus missiles if he takes power in Germany next year, which could help makeup for US cuts in military aid to Zelensky once Trump takes office and the GOP take control of both chambers of Congress
This is indeed very welcome. I note Trump recently said Ukraine should "expect" less aid from the US.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
Now it sounds a better deal, but I'd still want a lawyer with me during the negotiations.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
There was no cliff-edge. The gradient of the slope was increased but the change was still phased in.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
You'd certainly have the incentive to save for the long term in that scenario. Imagine being able to experience the beneficial effects of compound interest over centuries?
Yup. Earn *anything* above costs and inflation…
IIRC in the novel, society has largely collapsed and pensions are a pipe dream anyway.
Which nocel was that, please? I thought I had all of Ken Macleod's opus, but it doesn't ring a bell.
asks people who they prefer out of Scholz and Merz to be next chancellor Scholz 43% Merz 45%
That Merz is only 2% ahead of the widely despised Scholz, who is leading a historically unpopular government, and whose party (on 15% in this poll) is almost 20% behind CDU/CSU in the polls, shows how unconvinced people are by Merz.
Does this point to the possibility of a serious polling miss when the time comes?
Probably not - German opinion polling (at least at the national level) is rarely far off. I also don't really see the polls changing massively before the election itself. Though last time the SPD did move from 3rd place 2 months before the election to 1st place in the election, so who knows? Unlikely to happen this time around, though I wouldn't be surprised if the SPD knock the AfD from 2nd place to 3rd place. But it will still very likely end up with the only options being a Union-led coalition with the SPD or a Union-led coalition with the Greens.
Merz if he wins would be the most rightwing German chancellor since WW2, no Merkel centrist is he.
Yet the deep unpopularity of the SPD led government as with so many incumbent governments at present gives him a real prospect of power at the next German election.
The CSU have now ruled out a coalition with the Greens so most likely it will be another CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition
More likely true. But Söder ruling out a national coalition with the Greens is political positioning. If after the election the only 2 options are Union-SPD or Union-Greens, the Union would just handicap their own negotiating position with the SPD if they ruled out the alternative. Especially as Söder's argument against Black-Green is that there needs to be a change of direction, and it entirely depends on how the coalition negotiations go whether Union-Green or Union-SPD is more of a change of direction. The CDU is closer to the Greens than the SPD on Ukraine, for example. There's also the possibility that the SPD might not want another coalition with the CDU/CSU.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
So the five years difference in retirement ages between men and women, which lasted decades, was not unjust?
Governments need to change things occasionally. Often, there are winners and losers from these changes. They need to publicise the changes; but that doesn't mean putting a megaphone up to everybody's ears and shouting: "Are you aware of this change, it may effect you !!!! Are you sure ????"
If you won't read my post then there's no point in replying to it.
I did read it, and I think my response was valid and on topic?
Your reply opened with a strawman that completely ignored part of my post.
I'm not going to walk you through all the mistakes and errors of comprehension that you made because the imbalance in effort is not worth it.
If you will not put the effort into reading and understanding what I have written then there's no possibility of us having an interesting exchange of views. It would be a waste for me to try to have both sides of the debate by myself.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
Raising the pension age to 70-71 is already being discussed.
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Endlessly raising the retirement age runs into the problem that workers get too old to shin up ladders putting fires out, or throw bins into refuse trucks, or play Premier League football.
In an SF novel by one of the Scottish New Wave of writers (MacLeod?), set In a future Britain, you can get infinite life (injected nanotech). But you have to give up all benefits, including retirement.
Infinite life? You mean you keep on getting older? No thanks.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
The nanotech in the novel prevents aging and illness.
You'd certainly have the incentive to save for the long term in that scenario. Imagine being able to experience the beneficial effects of compound interest over centuries?
Yup. Earn *anything* above costs and inflation…
IIRC in the novel, society has largely collapsed and pensions are a pipe dream anyway.
Which nocel was that, please? I thought I had all of Ken Macleod's opus, but it doesn't ring a bell.
Trying to remember. It might be in the Star Fraction. It was one paragraph, IIRC, and not a big thing in the book.
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
I seem to recall Reform were roundly mocked before the election for a proposal in their manifesto very much like this.
I suspect that the this will hit the usual problem with trying to find savings in bureaucratic organisations - I.E. it won't be the budget for the "staff team building and social event co-ordinators" that gets cut, but instead the only way to make the numbers add up will be closing children's cancer ward... Repeat x10,000 until the cuts are too politically toxic to happen.
Getting budgets reduced sensibly is clearly a problem. However the idea it can be done by cutting staff events is absurd. Staff xmas parties in the public sector, outside of Boris' No 10 gang, havent been a thing for at least a decade.
From the outside the easiest cut is to use permanent staff instead of far more highly paid contractors.
I am (sort of) in the public sector. We had a very nice Xmas lunch yesterday. No public money was spent on it.
Yes, should have made clear I was talking about tax payer funded xmas parties and social events.
I once had a rich tea and a cup of instant coffee at the state's expense. A few cuts in those should reach 5% of departmental spending quite quickly.
Did you? How did you manage that? I've done about 7-8 years' work for various government departments and never had a single one!
I know your comment is tongue in cheek but actually many people in the private sector assume tea/coffee is provided free (as it is for them at work) but in the Civil Service you have to provide your own and I think it has been that way for a very long time, certainly since my temp days in the late 80s. Ditto Christmas parties are self-funded.
The reason is 'misuse of public funds' and applies equally to Councils, Universities, and even Network Rail when I was last there a few years ago.
It is not the cost of two packets of biscuits, most of which will not be eaten, but the catering staff who open and arrange the biscuits, make the tea or coffee, pour water into jugs, and then clean up after the meeting.
Best to sack the tea lady and have the £50k staff do it. (After all, we did the same thing decades back when typing pools were replaced by directors hunting and pecking at their PCs, and when SpAds had to do the suitcase run for Number 10's wine-time Fridays.)
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
The Guardian (BBC is similar) describes Reeves's latest plan thus:
As part of the review, Reeves will insist that every government department find efficiency savings of 5% of their budget for the coming year over the following three years
Now, while it is impossible to know what that means, 5% of total government/state managed spending is heading for £40-£50 billion. An example the BBC gives is a programme costing about £5 million per year. 10,000 such cuts, for ever, would total £50 billion.
At the same time there is no sector - not a single one - where someone is not agitating for substantially increased expenditure.
This is one to watch.
I seem to recall Reform were roundly mocked before the election for a proposal in their manifesto very much like this.
I suspect that the this will hit the usual problem with trying to find savings in bureaucratic organisations - I.E. it won't be the budget for the "staff team building and social event co-ordinators" that gets cut, but instead the only way to make the numbers add up will be closing children's cancer ward... Repeat x10,000 until the cuts are too politically toxic to happen.
TV tax frozen in 2010. What had to go? Live EFL football.
Seems an unusual example of a good budget cutting decision AFAICS. The cost of broadcasting football is astronomical.
For Sky, it is. BBC, I think, were subletting (I think that's right) some games. I think the deal was 10 Championship games, an EFL Cup semi final (one leg of each?) and the EFL Cup final. Pulling the plug on that deal saved very little money. But it sent a message to the Tories: Cut our budget, and we'll ditch the popular stuff.
Same reason the RAF always open the spending review with scrapping the Red Arrows. It’s the only thing the vast majority of the public ever see of the RAF. Ignore that the Reds are famous worldwide and are a great recruiting tool for the service.
Standard operating procedure in many, many organisations
1) told to cut 2) come up with a cut that is absolutely unacceptable. 3) get the cuts withdrawn
The test of good management is to call out on 2)
That's basically the same technique I use when a customer refuses to prioritise requirements - I propose them in what I think is reverse priority order pretending that's the most efficient order to implement them and amazingly a priority emerges very quickly.
It is not the cost of two packets of biscuits, most of which will not be eaten, but the catering staff who open and arrange the biscuits, make the tea or coffee, pour water into jugs, and then clean up after the meeting.
Best to sack the tea lady and have the £50k staff do it. (After all, we did the same thing decades back when typing pools were replaced by directors hunting and pecking at their PCs, and when SpAds had to do the suitcase run for Number 10's wine-time Fridays.)
There is no tea lady. Catering has been outsourced so you are now paying a fortune for additional layers of management, contract management and the outsourcing firm's dividends.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
No doubt if the Islamists were closing in on Lammy's Presidential Palace we'd see him man the barricades after tearfully waving off the women and children.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
It's claims like this that bankrupt a country.
The Govt just needs to tell them to do one.
Isn’t the nub of the matter that Lab have at various times before 04/07/24 backed the WASPI women? All parties do it but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chronic case of say any old shit to get elected as Starmer & co.
"Germany could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it is unable to overhaul Europe's asylum system, one of the country's leading conservative politicians has said.
Jens Spahn, who was a minister under Angela Merkel and represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, said the move is only one component of a far-reaching plan to lower migration levels."
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
Another example. I have been involved with Athena Swan at University. Our recruitment for pharmacy skews heavily female. I asked the Universities Equality and Diversity Officer (a black woman, natch) if this wasn't a problem that we should be addressing. Very frosty response - clearly asking for the wrong kind of equality.
I am 100% behind equality of the sexes but sometime the boundaries get pushed a bit too far. If a parent takes a career break and misses out on several year and thus finds it harder to get promotion, then that is just a consequence, whether that person is male or female.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
I'm not sure I understand how they are worse off (except in the sense of having to work for longer) - if anything they should be better off as they have had longer to accrue pensions and could have saved a little less per year, if anything.
And having just read up on it as a result of the discussion here, I really can't understand why the fuss now about a change brought in nearly 30 years ago.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
Well the whole issue is fractured in feminism. Many women accept the change and were aware of the change, the PHSO findings found many women were aware of this. There is the WASPI contingent who just want the PHSO compensation, there is another who just wants a means tested compensation, and the hard core who want full restitution Back to 60 who think they have been robbed of £40-£50K by the govt. Their view is £3K compensation when they have been cheated out of tens of thousands is not fair.
One thing is for certain with this issue.
It is great clickbait for the media. The number of "urgent WASPI compensation update statement" press articles there are coming out with monotonous regularity is amazing.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
There was no cliff-edge. The gradient of the slope was increased but the change was still phased in.
That seems to show that the transition had already started when the timetable was compressed in 2011. That does mean that people will only have had a relatively small number of years notice that their pension age was being changed again.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not support the claim for compensation for five years of pension. But I do think there's an implicit political contract between the state and the people to act reasonably when making these sorts of changes and I think the way the timetable for this change was accelerates breached that and was to a degree unreasonable in the amount of notice given and the speed of the adjustment.
My UK pension age is currently 68. I do not think that is likely to be affordable. The transition to 67 is happening before the next election, but I'd expect the transition to 68 will have to be brought forward if they will make my pension age 70.
It would be best to announce that as soon as possible rather than leaving it until the 2030s and only providing a few years notice.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
It's claims like this that bankrupt a country.
The Govt just needs to tell them to do one.
Isn’t the nub of the matter that Lab have at various times before 04/07/24 backed the WASPI women? All parties do it but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chronic case of say any old shit to get elected as Starmer & co.
Yes, you're right about that. Labour made a real hostage to fortune over this issue. WASPI women are regularly trotting out pictures of photo ops of them with Labour Politicians who supported them until they got into power. A handful of unambitious backbenchers still do but that is all.
It is like the Lib Dems opposing tuition fees until in power.
No doubt if the Islamists were closing in on Lammy's Presidential Palace we'd see him man the barricades after tearfully waving off the women and children.
What the **** are you on? I know your radar is permanently set towards Moscow, but supporting Assad - who was everything Lammy said he was - is quite something, even for you.
Blow to UK as equipment hire giant Ashtead heads for US
Equipment hire giant Ashtead plans to move its primary stock market listing to the US in a fresh blow to the London Stock Exchange. It said the US was a "natural long term listing venue" because most of its profit was in North America, along with its bosses, headquarters and the majority of its employees.
Ashtead is the latest of several big companies in recent years to delist from the London Stock Exchange [LSE], which denied it was in crisis in May.
Me too. Syria, all the way. You can do more good for the same expenditure. You can help set up structures that will have long-term benefits. You build good relationships with the new government. You increase the chance that 30,000 Syrian refugees in the UK can return home (surely something Goodwin is very keen on) and reduce the chance of more Syrians having to flee the country.
I tend to agree. Any cost-benefit analysis to this country would suggest that that is so.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
If they did that then the so-called WASPI women would also be facing that retirement age.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
As the change was brought forward it would have affected people who were not expecting to be affected, or have affected them more.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
This cliff edge & your apocryphal classmate example (5 years) is simply nonsense.
It was phased in for woman born between April 1950 and Dec 1953
See schedule 4 of the pension act 1995
The 2011 changes affected people born from Dec 1953 onwards and the worse affected would have had their pension delayed by 18 months. Men of the same age would have been affected by 12 months (65 to 66). The additional increase for woman was a result of accelerating the 1995 changes.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
Feminism has many. many different strands of thought and beliefs. As we see with (say) the trans issue: there are feminists who are against them. and some who deny they even exist. And there are those who are absolutely fine with them. There are possibly as many different strands of feminism as there are feminists.
As an example, Catholic feminists. There is a wide gap between most religions and feminism, and particularly between Catholicism and feminism. Then you ger Muslim feminism, which in some ways can be more extreme than 'normal' feminism.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
Feminism has many. many different strands of thought and beliefs. As we see with (say) the trans issue: there are feminists who are against them. and some who deny they even exist. And there are those who are absolutely fine with them. There are possibly as many different strands of feminism as there are feminists.
As an example, Catholic feminists. There is a wide gap between most religions and feminism, and particularly between Catholicism and feminism. Then you ger Muslim feminism, which in some ways can be more extreme than 'normal' feminism.
"Germany could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it is unable to overhaul Europe's asylum system, one of the country's leading conservative politicians has said.
Jens Spahn, who was a minister under Angela Merkel and represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, said the move is only one component of a far-reaching plan to lower migration levels."
The launch of the 2025 Spending Review feels like Groundhog day.
"Departments told to find 5% cuts" is a headline we could have read at lots of different points in the last seven years. A Treasury go-to. I did three of these exercises - '19, '20 and '21.
Talking of Groundhog day, I just watched a George Carin routine from the 90s, you could change the names of the politicians and it would all work today.
"Germany could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it is unable to overhaul Europe's asylum system, one of the country's leading conservative politicians has said.
Jens Spahn, who was a minister under Angela Merkel and represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, said the move is only one component of a far-reaching plan to lower migration levels."
I expect that sooner or later, there will be a wholesale re-write of the ECHR.
It's needed because the entire legal profession (No doubt immigration lawyers go on to become immigration judges and then more senior judges...) has taken further and further leave of any sort of common sense that was in place prior to the turn of the millennium when interpreting said convention in recent years.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
It's claims like this that bankrupt a country.
The Govt just needs to tell them to do one.
Isn’t the nub of the matter that Lab have at various times before 04/07/24 backed the WASPI women? All parties do it but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chronic case of say any old shit to get elected as Starmer & co.
Yes, you're right about that. Labour made a real hostage to fortune over this issue. WASPI women are regularly trotting out pictures of photo ops of them with Labour Politicians who supported them until they got into power. A handful of unambitious backbenchers still do but that is all.
It is like the Lib Dems opposing tuition fees until in power.
Was it in Labours manifesto ?
No
Next !
However, maybe some compo will be thrown their way £1k to £2.4k per person 3.6 million people. Lets say a one off £6 billion
The idea people are getting tens of thousands is for the birds.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
It's claims like this that bankrupt a country.
The Govt just needs to tell them to do one.
Isn’t the nub of the matter that Lab have at various times before 04/07/24 backed the WASPI women? All parties do it but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chronic case of say any old shit to get elected as Starmer & co.
Yes, you're right about that. Labour made a real hostage to fortune over this issue. WASPI women are regularly trotting out pictures of photo ops of them with Labour Politicians who supported them until they got into power. A handful of unambitious backbenchers still do but that is all.
It is like the Lib Dems opposing tuition fees until in power.
Was it in Labours manifesto ?
No
Next !
However, maybe some compo will be thrown their way £1k to £2.4k per person 3.6 million people. Lets say a one off £6 billion
The idea people are getting tens of thousands is for the birds.
If anything I suspect it will be that sort of sum but means tested.
WASPI campaign are already demanding/requesting Emma Reynolds enter some sort of mediation with them.
They have pretty much exhausted every avenue now. I guess they are at the "bargaining" stage on the grief cycle.
The launch of the 2025 Spending Review feels like Groundhog day.
"Departments told to find 5% cuts" is a headline we could have read at lots of different points in the last seven years. A Treasury go-to. I did three of these exercises - '19, '20 and '21.
Talking of Groundhog day, I just watched a George Carin routine from the 90s, you could change the names of the politicians and it would all work today.
Departments probably could find 5% cuts.... if they wanted to. MoD has more civils than soldiers now I think ?!?
But do the civil servants in said departments want to fire themselves & their friends ?
Probably not and there'll be huge internal resistance to clearing out deadwood.
The absolute inherent sexism in the WASPI claims is quite staggering.
When a generation of women worked towards a pension at 60 their anger is fully justified.
Equality of pensionable age at 65 or 66 is not the issue and I'd agree as being fair.
The issue with Waspis though is those in their late 40s and especially early 50s thrown off a cliff by the Cameron Govt.
A more gentle transition was needed.
Can you imagine if on the day they announced the Waspi decision that had told every male his new retirement age is 70 or 71.
The change was signalled well enough. And the women who did pay attention, and saved into their pensions accordingly, will also get the pay-out. Kerching!
I'm glad you acknowledge the inherent sexism than had men working for years longer than women, often in much more physical jobs. Where's your anger about that?
The staggering hypocrisy of the feminist movement laid bare with the ludicrous Waspi claim. If they had been told on their day of retirement that they had to work 5 or 6 more years they would have had a point. They weren't. There was plenty of time. Fundamental to equality of the sexes should be the point, not just rebalancing in favour of women.
Seems odd to damn the entire feminist movement because of the WASPIs. I've just looked through the last 42 articles at https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/ and not one mentions the WASPIs.
Feminism has many. many different strands of thought and beliefs. As we see with (say) the trans issue: there are feminists who are against them. and some who deny they even exist. And there are those who are absolutely fine with them. There are possibly as many different strands of feminism as there are feminists.
As an example, Catholic feminists. There is a wide gap between most religions and feminism, and particularly between Catholicism and feminism. Then you ger Muslim feminism, which in some ways can be more extreme than 'normal' feminism.
"Germany could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it is unable to overhaul Europe's asylum system, one of the country's leading conservative politicians has said.
Jens Spahn, who was a minister under Angela Merkel and represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, said the move is only one component of a far-reaching plan to lower migration levels."
I expect that sooner or later, there will be a wholesale re-write of the ECHR.
A pan european conference of governments on the matter, deciding multilaterally (but not including the court) on a common set of derogations would be one way. Probably easier than a full rewrite.
Comments
Politically, it is probably easier than ending the triple lock.
So by 2200, you will get a pension of £1m, once you reach the retirement age of 126.
{Bismarck has entered the chat, giggling}
Here is a 1-minute video of George Osborne telling Ed Balls about HMQ & the army's bagpipes.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X_dD74uhe40
Slashing all the budgets by x is the version for those without these skills.
The change was gradual and they have lost numerous legal challenges.
They shouldn't get a penny.
Suddenly, bang. Gone.
IPSO found the so-called "maladministration", which these women are hanging their hopes on for getting some money, was under the previous Labour govt not the Cameron govt.
All the Cameron govt did was pull forward the date of implementation a few years. The change was already happening. So if these women were not already making extra provision that is their problem.
This change had cross party support.
Originally full equalization was scheduled for 2020
Cameron government accelerated this to the end of 2018 (November).
People had 15 - 23 years to adjust.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
So you are not alone.
@GoodwinMJ
You can send £11 million to Syria or give winter fuel allowances to 36,000 British pensioners. I know which one I’d choose."
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1866400324283425130
What is interesting is the fate of their mounts. As it's impossible, for the same febrile reasons of fragile national vanity that makes getting rid difficult, for them to use a non-UK aircraft then the only possible succession plan is T2.
One very plausible scenario is Hawk T2 gets binned off in 2029 with 9 going to RAFAT and the rest into St. Athan. The RAF AJT training phase would then move to the IFTS in Italy.
Complete with protestors from the Left, outside the clinic, over the ending of the welfare state.
Hopefully 1981 will be kept at 68...
I reckon my other half might have an older pension age than myself being born 1987 though..
Amusingly that was the situation for my parents with my Mum having an actual older, not just later pension age than my Dad.
I think the cliff edge effect on entitlement in this case was ridiculous. There was one person whose classmates was just a little older than them and had five years more pension entitlement. Things like that simply look unjust.
Obviously the change had to happen, but the implementation was very poor.
https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q774#:~:text=Average healthy life expectancy at,past decade, official figures show.&text=In England, average healthy life,males and 62.7 for females.
https://x.com/CMcKinnellMP/status/1864961077139632180
Governments need to change things occasionally. Often, there are winners and losers from these changes. They need to publicise the changes; but that doesn't mean putting a megaphone up to everybody's ears and shouting: "Are you aware of this change, it may effect you !!!! Are you sure ????"
Indeed he has said he would provide Ukraine with more Taurus missiles if he takes power in Germany next year, which could help makeup for US cuts in military aid to Zelensky once Trump takes office and the GOP take control of both chambers of Congress
Think middle age that lasts forever…
https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/1866193546010669496
What PHSO found was that there was maladministration in 2005/6 and women would have had 28 months more notice had this not happened.
The courts found there was no legal duty for the govt to communicate state pension age changes either.
(Didn't the Cumaean Sibyl make that mistake?)
Not for the faint hearted nor libertarians...
The progressive left utopia
Combine the complete benefits bill... No exceptions apart from acute sudden illness.
It would need to be graduated over a 20 to 30 year period.
Lifetime State Income
A set payment from 18 to grave. Calculated to give a pension, hard times payment to all, that can also be used as a savings, retirement, investment proposition.
Abolish state pension for those joining at 18
Freeze existing NI contributions at date over 18 fet receipt
Abolish Child benefit
Abolish unemployment benefit
Abolish all Credit top ups
Abolish almost all sickness benefits
Abolish all non means tested benefits
Phased abolition of IHT
Phased abolition if CGT
Abolish Council Tax
Replace with a land tax based on square footage of property and acreage of land linked to average postcode property value
Effectively a state income for all to manage. Simplified streamlined
Offer a tax reduction to more wealthy people who may decide to opt out permanently of state income
At the same time introduce a one off wealth tax of 2% on all billionaires
Given that Reeves already seems to be in the Treasury's pocket, I'd expect the same from this one. Apart from anything else, it's going to be bloody difficult politically demanding restraint / cuts across much of the public sector in order to shovel (more) billions to wealthy pensioners.
IIRC in the novel, society has largely collapsed and pensions are a pipe dream anyway.
I'm not going to walk you through all the mistakes and errors of comprehension that you made because the imbalance in effort is not worth it.
If you will not put the effort into reading and understanding what I have written then there's no possibility of us having an interesting exchange of views. It would be a waste for me to try to have both sides of the debate by myself.
I know your comment is tongue in cheek but actually many people in the private sector assume tea/coffee is provided free (as it is for them at work) but in the Civil Service you have to provide your own and I think it has been that way for a very long time, certainly since my temp days in the late 80s. Ditto Christmas parties are self-funded.
The reason is 'misuse of public funds' and applies equally to Councils, Universities, and even Network Rail when I was last there a few years ago.
So the 5% will have to come from somewhere else.
Best to sack the tea lady and have the £50k staff do it. (After all, we did the same thing decades back when typing pools were replaced by directors hunting and pecking at their PCs, and when SpAds had to do the suitcase run for Number 10's wine-time Fridays.)
All parties do it but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a chronic case of say any old shit to get elected as Starmer & co.
Jens Spahn, who was a minister under Angela Merkel and represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, said the move is only one component of a far-reaching plan to lower migration levels."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14176685/Germany-quit-ECHR-migration-Britain.html
I am 100% behind equality of the sexes but sometime the boundaries get pushed a bit too far. If a parent takes a career break and misses out on several year and thus finds it harder to get promotion, then that is just a consequence, whether that person is male or female.
And having just read up on it as a result of the discussion here, I really can't understand why the fuss now about a change brought in nearly 30 years ago.
One thing is for certain with this issue.
It is great clickbait for the media. The number of "urgent WASPI compensation update statement" press articles there are coming out with monotonous regularity is amazing.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-timetable/state-pension-age-timetable
That seems to show that the transition had already started when the timetable was compressed in 2011. That does mean that people will only have had a relatively small number of years notice that their pension age was being changed again.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not support the claim for compensation for five years of pension. But I do think there's an implicit political contract between the state and the people to act reasonably when making these sorts of changes and I think the way the timetable for this change was accelerates breached that and was to a degree unreasonable in the amount of notice given and the speed of the adjustment.
My UK pension age is currently 68. I do not think that is likely to be affordable. The transition to 67 is happening before the next election, but I'd expect the transition to 68 will have to be brought forward if they will make my pension age 70.
It would be best to announce that as soon as possible rather than leaving it until the 2030s and only providing a few years notice.
(Seriously, what are they criticising him for?)
It is like the Lib Dems opposing tuition fees until in power.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/8d0f4940-7fcb-4659-9e9f-82cf9a0fbf19?shareToken=806c794022b77782cd377852bfa0a661
Equipment hire giant Ashtead plans to move its primary stock market listing to the US in a fresh blow to the London Stock Exchange. It said the US was a "natural long term listing venue" because most of its profit was in North America, along with its bosses, headquarters and the majority of its employees.
Ashtead is the latest of several big companies in recent years to delist from the London Stock Exchange [LSE], which denied it was in crisis in May.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rjkj43vggo
It was phased in for woman born between April 1950 and Dec 1953
See schedule 4 of the pension act 1995
The 2011 changes affected people born from Dec 1953 onwards and the worse affected would have had their pension delayed by 18 months. Men of the same age would have been affected by 12 months (65 to 66). The additional increase for woman was a result of accelerating the 1995 changes.
As an example, Catholic feminists. There is a wide gap between most religions and feminism, and particularly between Catholicism and feminism. Then you ger Muslim feminism, which in some ways can be more extreme than 'normal' feminism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_feminism
Be they based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation
Utterly boring and usually the save haven of low IQ lacking intellect
"Departments told to find 5% cuts" is a headline we could have read at lots of different points in the last seven years. A Treasury go-to. I did three of these exercises - '19, '20 and '21.
https://x.com/jo3hill/status/1866405904712888500
Talking of Groundhog day, I just watched a George Carin routine from the 90s, you could change the names of the politicians and it would all work today.
No
Next !
However, maybe some compo will be thrown their way £1k to £2.4k per person
3.6 million people. Lets say a one off £6 billion
The idea people are getting tens of thousands is for the birds.
I've met and listened to live speeches by Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, Neil Kinnock, David Davis
Edwina Currie, Michael Fabricant and Jess Phillips are personal friends.
My political hero's include David Nellist, John Smith. and Ken Clarke
My political hate list includes Linda Bellos, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Cirbyn, Christopher Pincher, Boris Johnson, Margaret Thatcher.
Go figure
WASPI campaign are already demanding/requesting Emma Reynolds enter some sort of mediation with them.
They have pretty much exhausted every avenue now. I guess they are at the "bargaining" stage on the grief cycle.
But do the civil servants in said departments want to fire themselves & their friends ?
Probably not and there'll be huge internal resistance to clearing out deadwood.