To think that although I dislike Reform, some of their ideas on this are potentially good, while others are worrying?

I simply don’t believe Reform will be able to implement the majority of the policies they propose.

They took control of two very large local councils here at the last local elections on a promise of getting a DOGE team in to get rid of DEI hires, slash bureaucracy and cut needless spending, and of getting ‘lazy’ council workers back into the office.

What actually happened was that they realised DOGE didn’t have the necessary permission to access the information they needed without breaking the law. They also found out that DEI simply isn’t a thing in local councils, and that bureaucracy is there to ensure best value for the council taxpayer. Then they realised that there was no needless spending because councils are completely skint. They also found out that you can try and force council workers back into the office but most of them will just leave and get private sector jobs because the only reason they were still working for the council on fairly shit pay was because of the flexibility of home working. Oh, and also that you need to find them office space that you mostly sold off five years ago. The only thing they’ve changed is that the council offices now only fly the union flags. Yay, I guess?!

The issue with Reform is that they’re quite good and short slogans full of promises, but when it comes down
to brass tacks, they do not follow through on their promises.

Means testing pensions? Another stab at those who contributed the most into the state through taxation and taxes and taxation. Reform are dangerous for many reasons. Happy to receive millions to fund them though. I’m not politically affiliated to any party. They’re all an utter shit show and I fear for this country but, Reform in power…then we really have hit rock bottom.

All their policies are blue sky thinking and won’t work. But wanting to scrap pension should put a lot of current reform voters off, so hopefully they will keep that on their list. If anyone thinks they can implement these radical policies, then I think they misunderstand how hard it is implanting big changes in government. Look at Starmer’s retraction re disability benefit. Even more people will kick off about state pension changes.

As a general principle, I definitely don’t think you’re unreasonable to like some of a political parties’ policies but not others. In fact, I think it’s a problem in our political discourse that we sometimes treat our political parties too much like fan clubs and imagine that just because we like/ dislike some of the things they say, we have to like/ dislike everything they say.

Having said that, I personally would not trust Reform - not on anything, but especially not on anything to do with the economy. And really, whatever their policies, I personally could never support a party who engage in some of the rhetoric they do. Accusing other political parties of being traitors etc is a red line for me, as would be the way a peaceful protestor was treated at their conference.

Its a party saying that they'll make a huge difference to the country, whilst being predominantly made up from the same people who made the decisions on the first place that got us in this mess. Of course you can't trust them. Farage just wants to be rich and cosy up to billionaires - he'd sell his own mother for a few million. Of course you cant trust them. If im to believe the daily mail, the reform led council were petty enough to block someone's gate, petty enough to take it to court and petty enough to make it as difficult as possible to access the property when they lost. Of course you cant trust them.

I’m a Labour voter, centrist. Liked Tony Blair a lot. I live in Scotland under the dire SNP. I LOVE that Reform walked of Holyrood yesterday rather than sit through yet another Indy debate, when the SNP know that they have no route to Indy - and won’t until there’s an overriding desire for Indy - which there isn’t. The Reform Scottish lead was bemoaning useless chit chat while improvements that could be made to people’s lives were totally ignored. Drugs deaths? Education? Health? Ferries? All a total bomb site but hey, let’s whang on a bit Indy instead. Reform we’re 100% right to call it out.

I don't blame you at all. This government is an absolute shambles, they went into the last election saying how easy it was to fix things and how 'the grown ups are now in charge'. They have been a disaster and I still don't understand why they changed leader when their ethos is the same. The damage the conservatives and Labour have done in the last 40 years is criminal, surely a change can only be a good thing

They can’t bring this in for people close to pension age. They can’t stop the pension for those who have already got it. So that means people working now would have to pay to fund the existing pension knowing they themselves wouldn’t get it. It doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me.

What other ideas do you like?

Is this thinktank secretly commissioned by the Torys to get some of those pesky Pensioners that wanted to vote Refom back?

Improvements have to be made all over the country but Reform aren't the ones to do it. Only vote for them if your Russian is up to scratch and you want to live in the United Kingdom of the Soviet Union. Reform: Sponsored by Russia 🇷🇺

But I would add that I really hope that Reform does adopt this as a policy because it will finish them off for good!

Based on the demographics of the groups most likely to support Reform, I can't see them scrapping the state pension any time soon.

Otoh, can we trust Reform to implement such policies well?

Thats the crux of any vote tbf, you have to judge a party by its policies and also by how likely they are to be implemented or implemented well.

Obviously you can't turn off the state pension overnight so you'd have to read the small print and finer print. Plus this pledge is in slight conflict to recent ones that they'd crack down on PIP and benefits. So you can't get money from Reform through benefits but if you're poor (which you will be if your benefits are cut) you'll get the full pension (which you would anyway under current circumstances).

No, we can't trust Reform to implement these policies well. To date, they have not been able to give a clear answer to how these policies will be funded. And what they are proposing with tax cuts for banks and corporations is that it will trickle down to a regular Joe whereas "trickle down economics" hypothesis has been debunked some decades ago.

What would happen to those of us who have been paying NI all our working lives but are too close to retirement age to access the scheme they are proposing? It doesn’t mention implementation dates. Are they proposing to implement it for everyone, for those who haven’t started work yet, or those not born yet? It’s thin on detail.