[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[beorhthelm]

Your comment was made in the context of means testing state pensions, where you note that there are lots of well off pensioners as well as poor ones, making it perfectly reasonable for one to assume you are in favour of means testing state pensions:

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Perhaps if you made a tiny bit more effort to write clearly there would be less scope for misinterpretation?

clearly say pensioners not pensions. that difference is the whole point i stuck my oar in.

the poster i quoted goes far further (cut out for that reason), for some reason not picked up.

 

[drew]

There is a particularly lunatic FB group in Burgess Hill which was originally set up to save a mini roundabout (I kid you not) but which has morphed into a generally right wing / pro conspiracy cess pit in which local councillors are threatened (two have had to resign and the police are involved) and 15 minute cities are regularly touted as extreme anti democracy/ anti car measures along with ULEZ (hardly an issue in Mid Sussex). There is no point in trying to have a reasonable fact based discussion, you'll be abused and eventually banned. In reality it's a very small group of people but it's scary how deep their ill informed prejudices run.

I was in that group as I'm quite partial to an argument but you can't argue with idiots so I left. As you say, it was originally set up to argue against the removal of a mini roundabout in the centre of town which, to be fair, worked pretty well, and was replaced by wider shared pavements (which aren't used to any extent by cyclists) and traffic lights. It then morphed into a platform for independent candidates at the local elections in 2023 and is now filled with individuals who seem clueless about the various levels of councils and their responsibilities. Unfortunately, many of them now pervade an wider Burgess Hill group with their idiotic stance on local issues.

 

[drew]

Would you be happy living on £9K a year? A very small private pension of £3500 takes you above the tax threshold so paying income tax.
That is below the minimum wage.

There are a few wealthy pensioners but they aren’t the norm and I can guarantee they aren’t women.

The vast majority of people are not just living off the state pension though. The majority have work pensions to supplement it. Not necessarily making them wealthy but not on the breadline.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The vast majority of people are not just living off the state pension though. The majority have work pensions to supplement it. Not necessarily making them wealthy but not on the breadline.

I wouldn’t say the majority have. Women of my age are unlikely to have a full work pension, as very few jobs were open to married women in the 70s. Part time work didn’t really get going until the 80s, and part timers were excluded from works pension schemes. There was also the option of a married woman’s stamp because women were covered by their husband’s contributions (unless they divorce).
i know of one women whose State Pension was £11 a week, and no works pension.
Fortunately, this will change over the next 20 years but this is the situation now. Women live longer and are 51% of the populatio.

 

[drew]

I wouldn’t say the majority have. Women of my age are unlikely to have a full work pension, as very few jobs were open to married women in the 70s. Part time work didn’t really get going until the 80s, and part timers were excluded from works pension schemes. There was also the option of a married woman’s stamp because women were covered by their husband’s contributions (unless they divorce).
i know of one women whose State Pension was £11 a week, and no works pension.
Fortunately, this will change over the next 20 years but this is the situation now. Women live longer and are 51% of the populatio.

Feb 24, office of national statistics, only 320k pension households living off just the state pension and other benefits.

EDIT: although that seems to be at odds with research by Sunlife which suggest 20% of men and 33% of women over 50 relying on state pension!!

 

[drew]

State pensions, paid for by a specific tax (NI) and paid out on the basis of what one has paid in is not a benefit.

Winter fuel payments is not an 'example' of a means tested pension. It is a means tested benefit.

State pension is not a benefit.

Strictly speaking, once you have reached the minimum contribution period then you don't get more pension even though you will continue to pay NI on earnings!

At the end of the day they should get rid of NI and just add it to income tax.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

clearly say pensioners not pensions. that difference is the whole point i stuck my oar in.

the poster i quoted goes far further (cut out for that reason), for some reason not picked up.

TS-DR

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Strictly speaking, once you have reached the minimum contribution period then you don't get more pension even though you will continue to pay NI on earnings!

At the end of the day they should get rid of NI and just add it to income tax.

I agree.

Not sure what I think about state pension. I start getting mine in 5 days, FFS!

I probably qualify for other goodies too (benefits, this time) such as free travel on omnibuses, but I'm too busy on NSC and marking exam papers to check.

I read somewhere that the NHS sends round a Naked Lady once a month to check my trouser reflexes, but I fear this may be apocryphal.

 

[drew]

I agree.

Not sure what I think about state pension. I start getting mine in 5 days, FFS!

I probably qualify for other goodies too (benefits, this time) such as free travel on omnibuses, but I'm too busy on NSC and marking exam papers to check.

I read somewhere that the NHS sends round a Naked Lady once a month to check my trouser reflexes, but I fear this may be apocryphal.

Due to the strain on staffing levels, that naked lady may not be of the generation you're hoping for!!

 

[TomandJerry]

Nearly 40% of the dirty money in the world is going through the City of London and other crown dependencies, the UK’s deputy foreign secretary has said.

Andrew Mitchell added the crown dependencies and overseas territories will face fresh demands from the Foreign Office to comply with UK laws setting up public registers of beneficial share ownership.

 

[A1X]

For those unaware, Monday’s vote was on an amendment which bans MPs who have been arrested over sexual assault claims being banned from entering the Parliamentary estate. The amendment passed by one vote. Tory MPs are now furious, for reasons I wouldn’t dare speculate on.

 

[Randy McNob]

 

[Gwylan]

State pensions, paid for by a specific tax (NI) and paid out on the basis of what one has paid in is not a benefit.

Winter fuel payments is not an 'example' of a means tested pension. It is a means tested benefit.

State pension is not a benefit.

As mentioned earlier, state pension has been defined as a benefit since 1946 - that's in your entire lifetime

 

[The Clamp]

Benefit or not, being forced to pay tax on something that was taken from you as a tax in the first place is f***ing obscene.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

A poverty refers to when a person or household does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum living requirements needed over an extended period of time. In other words, they cannot meet their basic needs.

 

[TomandJerry]

Millions of litres of raw sewage were illegally pumped into one of England's most famous lakes after a fault, documents seen by the BBC have revealed.

United Utilities failed to stop the illegal pollution of Windermere, in the Lake District, for 10 hours in February and did not report the incident to the Environment Agency until 13 hours after it started.

An almost identical incident occurred at the same location in 2022.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Millions of litres of raw sewage were illegally pumped into one of England's most famous lakes after a fault, documents seen by the BBC have revealed.

United Utilities failed to stop the illegal pollution of Windermere, in the Lake District, for 10 hours in February and did not report the incident to the Environment Agency until 13 hours after it started.

An almost identical incident occurred at the same location in 2022.

The good news is that share holders of United Utilities needn’t worry about losing dividends or their company losing the contract. Rishi and chums have their backs.

 

[Gabbiano]

Meanwhile we are seeing young lecturers, even senior lecturers leave academia for other work. Unheard of in the past because even though the salary ain't all that great to begin with, academic freedom coupled with a big pension at the end of the rainbow made the job very attractive. Now, starting salary remains low, the pension is degraded, and academic freedom has been replaced by insane amounts of form filling. I have to review all the courses I run shortly, using a proforma that makes me address questions no bugger in their right mind would ever ask, plus submit to appraisal which remains pointless but which now involves pages of form filling. Right in the middle of exam paper marking.

As a current PhD student I'm involved enough in the department to see how it works, but with enough distance to critically reflect on whether it's worth continuing with after I graduate.

My current answer is a resounding no. I see junior lecturers with excessive teaching loads, endless bureaucracy, faculty infighting and poor organisation, not to mention the expectation that you're meant to be publishing constantly at that stage of your career to simply keep your job. Sending out emails on a Saturday at 1am regularly, and funding calls are no picnic either.

Then you have the resentment of the undergrads who seem to think they're entitled to a degree because they paid tuition, and there's more and more of them but no extra staff because the universities are desperate for money even at prestigious unis. Assessment takes forever and then as you say the cheating has got more complex and AI will only continue to worsen that (though maybe the true skill we should be training is how to use AI properly).

All this for a starter salary in probably the high 30k range? Or even more likely, precarious short term contracts? "The passion for the work" doesn't make that worthwhile, no matter how much the cult of academia insists upon it.

Not that there are even enough jobs to go around.

 

[chickens]

It’s incredible. Outright lie after outright lie, endlessly gaslighting the British public and hoping nobody checks up on them.

All of our media should be leaping all over this regardless of their general political allegiance. A British Prime Minister is standing up on a podium and lying to the public. Outright, indefensible lying.

 

[abc]

As much as I really, really hate the current Tory government and the vast majority of their policies, I'd actually be in favour of a well-designed system for means testing recipients of any form of payments from the government.

IMO means testing is actually a policy that would benefit the left. Stop, or reduce, funding going to those who don't need it so that the funding available can go further in supporting those who do need it. It's not about equality ... it's about equity. And, I believe, ensuring those who are less well off (especially as they reach retirement age) are better supported will help ease pressure elsewhere: for example, poverty generally correlates with worse health and worse health correlates with increased pressure on the NHS.

The problem with means testing isn't the concept in itself. The problem is designing a system of means testing that works and has the fewest loopholes possible. I wouldn't trust the current Tory party to even get close to doing that.

Good post. There are too many people who get more benefits than they need or is fair and there are too many that get less than they need. Working in the social care sector I am quite vexed by this.
There is a strong case for looking how benefits are distributed rather than one for reducing the total benefit budget.