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Cameron’s 2011 “Triple Lock” for pensions creates a massive headache for Sunak – politicalbetting.co
Cameron’s 2011 “Triple Lock” for pensions creates a massive headache for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Part of the Tory programme at GE2010 was the “triple lock” for pensioners. Passed into legislation in 2011 this guarantees that the basic state pension will rise by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is largest.
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Many pensioers pay income tax at the basic rate, and a percentage at the higher rate.
The true cost is pension out minus tax paid on pensions.
The pensioners on lower incomes deserve the increase. Taxong it for better off pensioers strikes me as, to take a word from the previous thread, progressive.
Of course, predicting when the bribery will finally become unsustainable and have to stop is a mug's game, but there's no sign that we're anywhere close to that point yet. Could carry on for decades.
Labour just took an East Devon seat from the Conservatives for the first time in 35 years.
Interesting!
The problem is that Johnson splurges public finances in the same way that he splurges his own. He's virtually bankrupt which is what he's doing to the nation. You can't keep spending on the credit card for your daily living.
There's likely to be a big revolt over it but whether they'll bring it down, who knows?
One thing is certain: just as happened after the financial crisis, when action is eventually needed to rein in spending and balance the books, the old will be insulated from the costs and the young will shoulder the entire burden. Time for our regular reminder that. taking into account both demographics and the propensity to turn out to vote, over 55s constitute about half of the entire electorate; over 65s, a third. Any party that can grab the lion's share of support from that lot doesn't need to try very hard with everyone else.
This is the problem in the party of toffs and their middle class supporters now also being the party of the dirt poor and desperate. They have to govern in someone's interests and it isn't WWC red wall voters. They think Brexit was for them, no no, it was to exploit them.
They'll understand soon.
Sunak won’t do a Javid if the last sentence comes true.
The royal yacht is an example of a f-ing stupid piece of uncosted vanity. We've been here with Johnson many times before: bendy buses, water canons, cable cars, HS2. And don't forget he wanted to build a brand new London airport in the Thames estuary.
He's a menace with money.
This might reduce the 8% increase down to something like 3% - which could still be sold as an above inflation increase.
Whether or not the PM will go along with this will depend, as usual, on who has sat on him the most recently.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-universal-credit-cut-b1787955.html
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/17/universal-credit-cut-will-hit-red-wall-seats-hardest-tories-warned
The problem is that just as the Lord giveth so the Lord can taketh away.
If the meme spreads that the nasty party are back then Johnson risks losing both the north and the south.
Fact is, the buck stopped with Johnson. He had the chance to stop HS2 in its tracks. Didn't. It's another Johnson splurge.
Whether you think it will pay off is another question. Meantime we're spending billions on it.
Or at least, he could have done so in the same way that somebody could have stopped the building of the M25.
Merely saying ‘stop’ now would just have increased the costs when it had to be built later anyway.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
But it's undeniably controversial. And very expensive. The benefits are not conclusively established. And as Black_Rod points out, the extensions beyond Birmingham are far from sorted.
It's particularly acute at the moment because train passenger numbers have plunged during the pandemic to the lowest level in the UK since 1872. https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-rail-passenger-numbers-fall-to-lowest-level-since-time-of-steam-trains-in-1872-12324020
As for whether they could have stopped it, of course they could have done. They only began the tunnelling work under the Chilterns last month.
Sometimes you have to cut your losses.
Sunny morning; much sunnier than my general mood!
Obviously in the short-term I'd be pleased with a substantial rise in my OAP; it wouldn't make me change my vote though; although as a 'Never Tory' I know I'm not typical of my age group! In any event if there was a rise in income tax I'd lose some of it, and I'm inclined to agree with @Philiph, todays early bird.
How would an overall rise in income tax go down generally though? No way. I think, of taxing my income, an OAP, and not the chap next door, who is working.
And the airport in the Thames Estuary might actually be a good idea compared to the neverending Heathrow saga ...
Some people seem to instinctively hate infrastructure; any large project is expensive and often locally unpopular. Yet we'd have to think the state we'd be in if (say) the ecoloonies of the 1980s and 1990s at Newbury, Winchester etc had had their way with the motorway network in the 1960s. Or the railways in the 1830s to 1860s had been kyboshed by landed interests.
Infrastructure isn't just for next year; or the next thirty years. It is for a hundred years and more.
And the southern part is really only viable if it takes traffic from north of Birmingham and really only viable if the eastern leg is built and so takes trains off the Midland and ECML routes.
https://twitter.com/otto_english/status/1413259242874757120?s=21
Can't see it happening though. Many pensioners, even those with company or personal pensions, are not particularly well off.
On the other hand, I don't see a problem discarding an earnings figure that is obviously an artifact of the pandemic. What has the average rise in earnings been over the last 2 years?
Triple lock remains but this artificial rise doesn't occur due to the technical fix.
Though how the average is calculated will be crucial. Eg using a three year average as some have suggested will still mean an artificial issue in a couple of years time once the furlough year has rolled out.
The simple fact is that it is easy to stop something occurring, it would be a political nightmare to take something away.
It’s a bigger problem for the Labour Party because they’re too dumb to realise this and will just look stupid for pointing at the manifestos.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/1775728
There will be plenty of other issues distorted by pandemic effects in the next couple of years, that will require workarounds too.
Of all the things that need doing, changing the triple lock is one of the easier ones.
On these numbers, there is not much doubt that the country is riding into an economic storm. Pretty soon that will be followed by a social and political storm.
Johnson can not keep promising jelly and ice cream for everyone for much longer.
More generally, putting future spending plans in legislation like this is a terrible gimmick. It reduces flexibility and stores up problems when they're unsustainable.
Afterwards, once it was seen to be popular and a vote-winner, Cameron and Osborne grabbed all the credit..... and it was one of the reasons why the Conservatives did well in 2015.
People need to remember that there is no consistency to be found in the Conservative Party. As young HY and others keep reminding us, the Conservative Party will and say whatever it takes to win an election and hang on to power. This is very cynical and two-faced of them, of course.
And remember the whole point was to keep pensioners relatively new well off. The figure is only so high because there was a completely unexpected dip in average earnings last year that has now been reversed.
It's a unique circumstance that needs to be explained and then a decent offer made - it will also need to play along with NHS and other civil servant pay rises and allowing 8% will cause problems everywhere.
"paltry amount" suggests "out of touch"
HS2 is sensible, and necessary. By Adonis, and I say it though I can't stand the man. Cable cars, water cannons - maybe. Though demonstrations continue to be too out of control.
Heathrow - fifty years later and it is still held up. Not really sure whether this is an issue; other EU countries, who we know are the advanced on the planet (cough) are building plenty of runways. Like HS2, the problem to building it is nimbies.
For the last decade, many private sector workers have seen close to zero pay rise. Not index-linked either. There would be huge resentment at taxes needing to rise for yet more public sector pay awards.
As a pensioner I have long said the triple lock is not sustainable
The decision on UC is wrong
And I doubt iSage will be promoting this survey but it is good news for children
BBC News - Covid: Children's extremely low risk confirmed by study
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57766717
One of the reasons that the new RouteMasters were ordered was to reduce the emissions in London - which were exceeding agreed limits in a number of areas.
Reports say the last meeting of senior ministers on social care reform broke up because they can't agree on the money and yet they are contemplating this 8% rise. Bonkers on stilts.
Universal Credit is trickier. I was never particularly clear what the justification for the extra £20 a week was, It seemed to be a peak of we are all in this togetherness. It is not obvious what additional costs the unemployed actually incurred as a result of the pandemic. At the margins costs incurred by attending Job Centres and the like were actually saved. But again UC is a parsimonious scheme which gives a very poor standard of living to those reliant upon it. Having given the extra money it seems extremely harsh to take it away again.
Boris is indeed a spendthrift. He also wants the economy to recover strongly. I think that the UC and a significant pension increase will both be put on the credit card to boost consumption and help retail recover somewhat.
It won't happen.
The only saving grace is that the low-hanging fruit have become the excess deaths of 2020. A lower pension bill than it would have been otherwise.
PS I'm 71 and I've still got my own teeth.
All these people have been voted in via a democratic process and, were they to become Cons leader, would have a democratic mandate to be so.
If this means that you decide to end your lifelong support of the Cons as a result then so be it.
I'm one of the lucky ones who has an occupational pension as well. It's embarrassing, to say the least, that working people who fund it are struggling a lot more than I am.
How it gets resolved is beyond me, but something needs to be done.
Good morning, everyone.
Indeed. But logic should be objective, not subjective. I never claimed to be a politician.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ajGZv6KBixo
Sub 12 weeks isn't really "long" even if it may feel it at the time.
One of the reasons I felt uncomfortable at the wholesale condemnation of Trump was because tens of millions of Americans voted for him and to dismiss that out of hand struck me as (typically British) condescension. Same really for your list. Yep they are all better or worse to different degrees but people voted for them. And JRM for sure has come from a privileged position but Lisa Nandy hasn't. And both of them are MPs. As could you and I try to be if we wanted enough to be one.
But yes, I'll take a chill pill.
General election => parliament => bills => definitions/laws.
Anyone can change it any time they want. All they need is a parliamentary majority.
I’d still contend a single person on c.£600 a month wouldn’t be looking on that as a good amount of money.
No one wants to get into intergenerational conflict, but for politicians in power theres only one horse worth backing in such a contest.
We all focus on the same ball, we all focus on the same goal. There is nothing bad about this. It reminds us that there can be things that unite us and that they should survive off the pitch as well as on it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/08/englands-flag-waving-perfect-antidote-virus-wokedom/