Can’t just be me who is sick of the moaning about the private school VAT and winter fuel payments

Pension credit allows you to have £16,000. That is not a very small amount and is certainly enough to replace a washing machine etc. Also, you can have a bit more if you show it's earmarked eg if you need to pay out for roof repairs.

No need to save for funerals, it just comes out of the estate. All these funeral insurance policies are a con but that's for another thread!

does make me think that politics should be compulsory in schools

Yes. My son wants to start an institute for political education to teach people how the various institutions work, how taxation works and where the main sources of revenue are etc.

They have them in Germany - a main federal one and then one for the various states. There is ample evidence that people in the UK would benefit too - the Brexit vote being the key one.

I think it's all nonsense too.

If you can afford private school fees, you can afford the VAT. Or you can't and will have to send your kids to state schools with the plebs. The horror. Oh well. The 93% seem to do ok.

And the winter fuel payments will still go to the elderly people who are hard up and actually need them.

I think it is partly because the top 10% (people on £67k+ a year sometimes x 2 if both parents work as many with children in private school do ) have been given under the high tax Tories the highest tax burden in 70 years, whereas the other 90% have had tax cuts since 2010.

How is this right? The highest tax burden of 70yrs is on the lower 90% not the upper 10%.

In the 1970s, the highest rate of income tax on earned income was 83 per cent. Margaret Thatcher’s government reduced it to 60 per cent in 1980 and 40 per cent in 1989 (equal to the higher rate).

In 2010, the highest income tax bracket was raised to 50% by Labour for only the top 1% of earners (the rest of the top 10% stayed at 40%) but then that 50% was cut by the Tories to 45% in 2013.

Meanwhile, the lower 90% haven’t had any tax cuts just for them. The lower tax bracket has remained at 20% and the personal allowance freeze started in 2022 and now extended to 2028, has more than offset the NI cut, causing a net tax increase for everyone except the top 1%, but disproportionately affecting the bottom 90%.

Exactly.

I think it is partly because the top 10% (people on £67k+ a year sometimes x 2 if both parents work as many with children in private school do ) have been given under the high tax Tories the highest tax burden in 70 years, whereas the other 90% have had tax cuts since 2010. I can understand everyone being happy when others not they pay more tax - of course. Let billionaires pay it all people say or non doms or Amazon or doctors - just about anyone who earns m ore than the person making the comment. However there does come a point where those who fund the rest - the net payers work a bit less (which already happens for those who lose the personal tax allowance around the 100k mark and those losing child benefit a bit lower down and then right down to those on benefits where work may or may not pay. The UK has a massive productivity problem so encouraging those who pay a lot of tax to work harder may mean more money for state schools than this mean private school VAT and business rates policy which breaches EU law and depends on Brexit to get it done.

'I know exactly what you were doing. You were insinuating that people will lose out on the WFA who are more morally deserving of it than others who will keep it. Because those in the first group were more sensible than those in the second. You were doing it as part of your wider narrative that under Labour hard work and frugality is 'punished' whereas under the Tories its rewarded. Which is of course, a lie.'

👏🏻 👏🏻

Hard to fathom isn't it? Whatever your politics, it's hard to understand the mindset of people who bring such high levels of drama and hyperbole to what basically amounts to a change to a moderately left leaning government, within a conservative (small C) democracy like the UK. Some of the comments I've seen, all bluster and emotion, with very little rational thinking or knowledge does make me think that politics should be compulsory in schools. People appear to be whipping themselves up to panic due to a lack of basic understanding.

Another neighbour has checked and she doesn't qualify. Absolutely - she has a small amount if savings for unexpected costs, and gets pension savings credit, but not pension credit, so doesn't qualify.

Nearly all of us probably take out more than they put in, only the top 10% who pay in lots and use private schools, private healthcare etc are likely to be net contributors. But it's important as a society that we look after the most vunerable, and I cant think of many more vunerable people than my neighbour.

Loath?

You actually think a political party loath ordinary folk. Whereas the Tory Party love them, perhaps. Strange how politics brings out extreme thoughts.

You mean for those of us who work. For pensioners? For those who have worked hard and managed to save a little bit of money?

Your average person really.

Nah. It’s going to be a tough one for the ordinary folk. That’s who they loathe .

Indeed, it came over that way. Pretty standard, typical stuff.

I know exactly what you were doing. You were insinuating that people will lose out on the WFA who are more morally deserving of it than others who will keep it. Because those in the first group were more sensible than those in the second. You were doing it as part of your wider narrative that under Labour hard work and frugality is 'punished' whereas under the Tories its rewarded. Which is of course, a lie.

Every pensioner will have had a different life and different path to their circumstances in retirement. So tired of this oversimplistic deserving and non deserving poor narrative.

I am tired of the poor standard of comprehension on this site although it should come as no surprise! Clearly, to an intelligent person, I was not dividing pensioners into two camps, I was clearly referring to a subset who will be badly hit by this vote-catching policy.

Yes, because there's only two types of pensioner isn't there? The hard working, frugal, sensible type who worked their arse off and lived off tinned spam so as not to be a burden, and the feckless, wrong uns who spent all their money on bingo and holidays in Benidorm leaving your good self to support them in their old age. Nobody ever worked all their lives but had an income so low and/or a life so challenging they managed to save no more than their funeral plan. No one ever worked in an easy job at a moderate pace, saved nothing, but ended up with an inheritance and a public sector pension.
Every pensioner will have had a different life and different path to their circumstances in retirement. So tired of this oversimplistic deserving and non deserving poor narrative.

The Labour government are playing upon people’s bitterness and envy towards those who on the face of it are better off than them without having actually properly assessed the impact.

So they're just like any other Labour administration then!

As far as WFA goes, the pensioners I feel sorry for are those who, because they've been careful with their money, now have a little too much, whereas those who had a similar income through their lives but chose to piss it up the wall will continue to be carried by the rest of us.

Not just Tories

For Tories

Sorry to derail but does anyone remember that in one of the many! Mumsnet threads about private school VAT increases a poster posted a link to an article laying out some arguments supporting the increase. I’ve spent ages trying to find it but there were so many threads and a google search hasn’t brought anything up. I think it was in the past 3 or 4 months, certainly prior to the election. If anyone knows what I’m talking about and has the link could they post. It’s driving me mad!

Is he small pension more than £5.77 a week? If so he is better off than those on pension credit and WFA so you can reassure him he has no need to worry.

Absolutely. But I think it will become harder to get. The whole point of non means tested disability benefit is to address any disadvantage caused by the disability, when compared with a non disabled person in those circumstances. (The reason DLA is hard to claim for very young children, as all that age group have high supervision needs, for example) As more and more people report the same difficulties it will be harder to show those difficulties disadvantage them compared to others.

Yes I've thought similar as the current situation is so unfair. Two people with severely compromised mobility and one gets £75 a week extra or a motorbility car and one doesn't. It is one of things we get the most enquiries about on our helpline for older people - everyone wants to know how they qualify for a motorbility car because they can't walk and we have to tell them that because they are state pension age they can't. Then everyone gets shirty about the rules ! then you have some really old people who are still on DLA with higher rate mobility who still have their motorbility cars and these people were awarded DLA years ago ( and they've never been re-assessed in 20 + years ) when the criteria were a lot easier to meet and still have them at age 85 +. No wonder people think the system is unfair?

Yes, I know. I'm expecting that sooner or later there will be a policy of managed migration of those PIP claimants over pension age onto AA, which will see some fall off the edge of the criteria.

Yet if you receive PIP mobility before pension age ( even applying just a few weeks before pension age ) you continue to get that until the day you die? I've had a sudden influx of people applying for PIP just a few weeks before turning state pension age and being awarded it. Yet have a major stroke just after you turn pension age and we have to tell people they can't get any help with mobility and have to wait six months before claiming anything. It's bonkers.

The “problem” with dla is that it’s a gateway benefit so a lot of things use dla as proof for certain things so people don’t necessarily need the money but want access to certain other things, certain Sen sessions run by various places require dla as proof for entry for example