Nick Robinson on the Today programme said that people affected by withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance were "the wartime generation". AIBU to think he's wrong?

I think you are right about those growing up during the war tending towards economising and frugality - also saving 'for a rainy day', without realising that the 'rainy day' (their old age) had arrived.

DH and I both benefitted from decent inheritances when our parents passed away but it's a shame that they didn't spend a little more to make their lives comfortable in their last few years .

You would have to be 79 to have even been alive in part of the war.

Maths not Nick Robinson's strongpoint (or not that of who writes any scripts they use).

You would have to be late 80’s / 90’s to have any memories of the war now.

Wrong on both counts. Yes there was conscription and yes there was an actual war in the early 50s in which UK soldiers fought. It was horrific

I often think that those going into homes now will need to entertained by Elvis Presley, The Beatles etc and not Glen Miller. My mum was born in 1945 and has no recollection of war; rationing yes.
We do need to stop with the war analogy when referring to those who are of pensionable age...

Exactly this!

You are completely spot on.

No doubt you were given money in some way or the other when you had your children? Non-means tested?
Why should people be paid for having children when they have £150k in the bank and are working?

My DM is furious that Labour are 'after the pensioners now'. My DM owns her own house outright, has over 150k in the bank and still works FT at the age of 70. When I look at my Uni age DC and how hard their generation have it in terms of debt, housing, jobs, COL I struggle to have any sympathy. Why shouldn't the WFA be means tested?

Your level of ignorance is stunningly phenomenal

What a nasty post.
It isn't the 'odd 97 year old still alive' . There will be people on here who were alive in the war, and some with parents, yes over 80, but not just '97', who experienced thexway.
What a disgusting and ignorant post

they should allow the allowance for all those born before 1945 for example
so unfair for those who perhaps have a small pension which eliminates any pension credit application.
they are not ALL rich and many of them are very careful with their money due to longstanding memories of the war years and rations

No they are not the wartime generation. They are largely the baby boomers. I struggle really to understand why there is such outrage over this issue. Always seemed a strange payment to me. If lower income pensioners - and others - are poor by all means increase the pension/minimum wage but this universal lump sum seems crazy.

The mental gymnastics some go through to justify this policy is quite something. If Sunak had done this there would be riots.

my dm's fridge and freezer and full of left overs
nothing is ever thrown away

it is emotive though
my dm born in 1935 remembers the war
ok she was young but she still remembers it and would have been 10 when it ended and been affected

The accepted definition of the Greatest Generation/Wartime Generation is people born before 1928. And there are very few of those left. However, people of Nick Robinson’s age would have grown up surrounded by them and he seems to be using the term as an emotive synonym for ‘old’. As a nation we are obsessed with WWII. None of this has much to do with the WFA. The decision to scrap it for all but the very poorest pensioners feels like an own goal for Labour which is overshadowing any good work they are doing.

Rationing didn’t end till the 1950’s and those children born close after had parents who were deeply affected by WW2.

My parents were close to mid forties when they had me and had grown up in WW2. My Mother, Father and stepfather all had many issues because of the war.I know my Mother's Fathers death serving in the forces affected her terribly, she was also sexually assaulted as a very young teen more than once during the war and remembered being hungry. My biological Fathers family were refugees due to the war and my Fathers sister was killed during their escape.I wasn’t born till the sixties. I used to have to ring my Mother on firework night after I left home as the sound of fireworks ansolutley traumatised her due to being caught in bombing raids as a child/teenager. My Dad died a few years ago as did my Mother. He was crying for his baby sister not long before he died.

ilcuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Myth-of-the-Baby-Boomer.pdf

This is an interesting challenge to the suggestion that all 'BBs' are wealthy and asset rich.

My DM died last month age 91, so she won't need the fuel allowance this year, but she was badly bombed in Coventry aged 7, she spent the night of the Coventry blitz underneath a table rather than in the shelter because there had been a lot false alarms, woke up to a city with no water, no power and piles of smoking rubble everywhere, and lost friends and neighbours. She also didn't really get a proper school education as a result and left school without any qualifications. The war has massively affected her life, and our lives too including my DD's through the trauma it caused. My aunt is the same age, also growing up in Coventry, and still very much alive.

I feel like the effects of the wars and what that generation went through are massively underplayed.

My dad was born 5 years after the war. (Was still very much feeling the affects of war growing). His crap army pension means he just misses out on pension credit. The new cuts to winter fuel payments mean he will now face some hardship. This is a man who has cancer and severe arthritis. Not all pensioners were using it to jet off abroad.

I do understand what you mean about the obsession with world war 2 however. A lot of the older generation have passed.

" i think better to give to some who don't need it than risk some not getting it who do need it and might be suffering in a cold house all winter."

At the end of the day, the will of the people was to vote for austerity via the conservatives and then Brexit. Both impoverished the country and we need to accept the country is in decline.

We have the highest taxes since world war 2 and pretty much every publicly service is still falling apart. Kind of ironic since the "wartime generation" voted overwhelmingly to leave...

The wartime generation does not just mean someone who was old enough to fight. How embarrassing to be so ignorant.

My dad was born in '47 and for the first few years of his life had a ration book. He's still got it somewhere. He doesn't need the WFP, just puts it in his savings or gives it to his grandchildren.

There are plenty of elderly people arounthers, lked who were children during WW2 so he is right about some pensioners who will not receive the WFA this year. Others, like me, were born a few years after the war.

Not getting the allowance this year doesn't bother me but it is hard for those who are only just over the the threshold limit for pension credit, even by a very small amount, and who have previously paid their winter fuel bills out of the allowance.

It was also a poor move by Labour, it hasn't won them many friends.

£300 (I think that is what I got last year), works out at roughly £5.76 per week, I can't tell whether someone else would find it difficult to put that aside all year round but it is probably a good idea to save some for fuel bills. However don't people usually pay monthly by DD anyway? I do, pay all my bills that way so I have no sudden huge bills.