FIRST IT WAS THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE SICK: NOW THEY ARE OUT TO GET OLD PEOPLE

I'm obliged to "Arbroath" for pointing me in the direction of this story in the Indy about pensioners' benefits.


I felt it was worth a comment because it's actually quite a complicated issue.


Before the last UK election Mr Cameron was forced to make a statement by, if I remember rightly, a Sky journalist who asked him if it was true (as suggested by labour) that he would cut benefits to pensioners. In super election mode Cameron said that he rarely called any one a liar but that Labour were liars. It was something he felt VERY strongly about. He would keep benefits exactly the way he inherited them.

Which kind of boxed him into a corner, and one which I suspect his party wasn't terribly happy about.


It is debatable if Cameron has kept his promise. Winter fuel payments have been reduced from what they were, but the Tory/Liberal argument is that Labour had put them up temporarily and they were due to reduce in any case. (It strikes me too, that there has been some reduction in the amount allowed for subsidised bus fares in England, but I can't be sure about that.)


However, a close friend of the prime minister and party moderniser Nick Boles has recommended that benefits like prescription charges (England only)  bus passes (free in Scotland, subsided in England) free tv licence for the over 75s, and winter fuel payments (universal across the islands) should be available to only the poorer pensioners.


This of course doesn't seem unreasonable, depending whether or not you agree with universal benefits or not.

I'm undecided. I can see the advantages of means testing, and if the money saved on the rich were to be ploughed back into the poor, then that would make some sense. Of course, it will not be. This is Britain.


The thing that made me feel a little disquieted was this paragraph from the Indy's story:


"The Chancellor, George Osborne, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, are prepared to bring in changes before 2015, arguing that old people should play their part in clearing the deficit."


What? It seems to me that it must have escaped the notice of these very rich men that pensioners are very definitely already playing their part in the deficit reduction plan (although as the deficit keeps rising I wonder that it can any longer be called that). 

Firstly many relatively poor pensioners have some savings, upon which they are now receiving insultingly small rates of interest, far far lower than the rate of inflation. So they see their hard saved money losing value by the day. Yet they dare not spend it because they have no way to replace it, and getting old without a small amount to fall back on is a frightening prospect. Keeping the interest rates low may have helped people with mortgages; it has hurt the nation's savers.


The half baked, useless and incredibly expensive quantitative easing programme in which hundreds of billions of pounds have been poured into the banks, has, it seems to me, done nothing to improve the situation for anyone other than fat cat bankers. What it has done is take billions out of pensions. The bankers cheating on Libor Rates has also cost pension funds dearly. In short people negotiating a pension deal at the moment are in for a sad shock, as the future they might have planned based on pension estimate of 3 years ago, will now be but a dream. 


As Osborne, Clegg and Duncan-Smith will never have to worry about the odd million, they may not have bothered to noticed this.

Means testing can be a useful tool in getting money to where it is most wanted, but it also has disadvantages. 


Firstly it is expensive. Everyone's income, from all sources, and family circumstantial must be verified and staff all over the country would initially have a massive job to do this. But, of course, there will be hundreds of thousands of changes of circumstances every week as people die, have dependants move in and out, spend some of their savings, get extra money from wills (or whatever), have pension changes...and so on There is a huge potential for error, and of course for cheating (yes, some old people cheat).


The second problem is that some things can be means tested on a sliding scale.  A winter fuel allowance for example could be paid in full to someone with £7,000 or less income, and not paid at all to someone on £10,000 or more. In between a sliding proportion of the allowance could be paid. This is a fair way to work.


But you can't do that with a bus pass, so you will have an inevitable cut off point at which people, had they eared but 1p less a month would have been entitled to whatever the deal is in their respective countries. However, as their income stands, they get nothing! Very unfair.

Interestingly, I have yet to hear about MPs taking about reducing the incredibly generous pension they receive; ministers no longer being allowed a redundancy package when they are sacked or forced to resign, given that they already have a well paid job of MP...or expenses as a lord;  nor indeed any reduction in the once-again incredibly generous allowances given to elected and non elected members; or the subsidised meals and drinks in their bars.


Why is that? Should they not be taking part in helping to reduce the deficit?

LIAR: THIS PLUMBS NEW DEPTHS FOR THE TORIES

It was a “watch my lips” moment when the prime minister was asked about winter fuel payments for the elderly.

In the run up to last year’s election he was asked about the benefits given to pensioners; bus passes, winter fuel allowance, free tv licence.

Labour had been putting out leaflets suggesting that these benefits would be cut and David Cameron, saying that he felt very strongly about this said that these Labour leaflets were COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES.

He added that if the (then) prime minister had amoral compass then he should “dig it out”... The Tories would keep the benefits in the way in which he inherited them and it was wrong for Labout to be scaremongering.

He said that he didn’t use the word “lie” very often, but he would on this occasion. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been quite so vociferous, because yesterday pensioners were told that their winter fuel allowance of £400 for over 80s, and £250 for over 65s, would be reduced to £300 and £200 respectively. This despite double inflation rate rises in gas and electricity and who knows how much more before the winter. After all the government seems disinclined to take the steps that the French government took over their power suppliers and insist on inflation only rises.

So now, I don’t use the word liar very often either, but I’m afraid I’m going to use it about Mr Cameron. In the clip linked here, he repeats this over and over again in a way that makes one think that it REALLY matters to him. That was electioneering of the worst sort, because it doesn't.

So he’s a liar and he has no moral compass to dig out at all. His mother won’t be cold this winter though, so that’s alright. The rest of you can freeze.

Iain Duncan Smith has given notice that he will be looking at other benefit like free bus passes and tv licences in an effort to save money. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any lower, along comes Iain Duncan Smith

I know we’re in a mess, but we have enough money to go to war in Libya, so why don’t we have enough money for at least our poorer pensioners.

This is an inexcusable and despicable attack on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country. It would have been a low thing to do in any case, but after that denial, which I have would say was repeated over and over again in interviews... it’s plumbed new depths.

Pics:(1) Fortunately not every pensioner is cold and uncomfortable all winter. (2) This man is visiting an old lady who most certainly won’t be cold. (3) Clearly this lady is not so fortunate; and will be even less fortunate this winter. Sickeningly over 20,000 old people die from cold related illness every winter.

SENIOR CITIZENS WILL EXPECT PROMISES TO BE KEPT

Last week David Cameron was courting the so-called “pink vote” with a video interview with “Gay Times” part of which Tom Harris has posted with some well chosen words. It really is well worth a watch if you like a laugh.

Today it’s the so-called “grey vote” that he’s after (I just noticed that it was last week gay; this week gray... I wonder when it will be Brown!). What I’m thinking is... is this as erm inept as last week’s courting....?

Cameron said he wanted 'dignity and security in old age' (well, he’s not going to say the opposite, is he?) and he promised to protect the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes (I guess the latter will be in England).

He agreed that the older generation has a vast amount of power at the ballot box, being as there are so many of them and that they tend to vote.

Mr Cameron restated the Tories’ commitments to re-linking the state pension to earnings, a hugely expensive reversal of the iniquitous reforms of Mrs Thatcher’s in the 1980s. He also committed to freezing council tax for two years as the Salmond government has already done in Scotland.

He said that he was aware that many, many pensioners lived on incredibly tight budgets and that as a result increases in electricity prices, gas prices, or council tax, were hugely difficult for them.

He said: “We are facing a very difficult situation in this country with huge budget deficits, massive problems with the Government’s finances. So we have to be very careful about the policies that we make but I think there are some things that we can do to help.”


The Conservatives claim that a single pensioner on an average income will be more than £110 a year worse off under Labour because of what they are calling ‘tricksy’ changes in the budget. They party claims that this 2.5% rise in basic state pension is £59 less than if it had been increased in line with inflation, and pensioners lose out too because of the income tax allowances freeze.

Cameron said: "Who would ever have thought a Labour government would hurt pensioners in such a devious way?" And in that matter I agree wholeheartedly. What kind of people cheat OAPs, and have done so for so long. Barbara Castle must be spinning in her grave.

Cameron added: "They (Labour) go around scaring pensioners, telling you that the Conservatives are going to cut the winter fuel allowance, cut pension credit and end free bus travel and TV licences for over 75s. I can promise you, these are lies, lies, lies. You have my word. If we win the election, we will protect all of these things."

You will be held to that Mr Cameron. All of it including the dignity part. There is currently no dignity in the way that some of our senior citizens live, and it is up to you to start to fix it, regardless of the country's financial situation. It is more important that people over 65 live in a decent and relatively comfortable way than that bankers get bonuses or MPs and Lords get expenses. Make sure you see to it David.



Pictured: Mr Cameron, and a random illustration of how some of our people, that's you and me, spend our last days.