If you voted Labour in July, have you changed your mind?

[notgettinganyyounger]

Are you happy with the changes so far, and still backing Starmer?

It's brilliant not have yet another winter of public sector strikes. Lets get this country moving again.

It’ll take time.

Caringcarer

£11,500 is a very low base though to stop people getting the fuel allowance. I agree with means testing it but £11500 is just too low. Those on PC will now be better off than those on just a full state pension and no private top-up. That can't be right.

No it's not because it assumes a single pensioner who lives in their own owned home with less than 5k in savings - who is physically fit and doesn't care for anyone ..

Even then on £11500 a year an average council tax rate D payer can claim £31.96 a week in council tax relief . (Considerably more than WFA !)

If they rent then they can claim housing benefit . If they are disabled they come in to pension credit and get £££ more per month plus WFA..

If they care for a poorly spose who needs to keep warm all day - then they can claim the underlying careers allowance and be entitled to pension credit ..

One thing in all of this that is never mentioned is capital .. you may be in £11500 .. but what have you got in capital .

Propaganda of the highest order . If you don't want to claim what you can then don't . Most families with kids do not have anything like the disposable income of the average pensioner !

But talking about prosperity would be literally that- just talk.

No I didn’t vote Labour and yes, it is as bad as I thought it would be, and about to get worse.
I won’t, and can’t, defend the Conservatives but at least they didn’t take my heating allowance whilst overlooking the free gas and electricity, salaries, allowances, subsidies, expenses and colossal pensions of MPs.
Can anyone put an annual figure on this?

It’s difficult to find statistics for disposable income for families, but the latest ONS survey of disposable income I could find suggests that average disposable income for pensioner households is 24% lower than non-pensioner households

Oh yeah, full of regret. Wish we had the halcyon days of Rishi, Liz, Boris (have I missed anyone?) back.

The prisoner early release has meant someone who means a lot to me is coming home a lot sooner (in for fraud which was genuinely a huge mistake due to depression and bad management) however I fully understand why lots of people wouldn’t be happy with it and I do regret voting them just hope my mates learnt a lesson

Can anyone put an annual figure on this?

Not exactly but savings from WFA = over 1 billion

650 MPs would have to get £1,538,462 each/year to = 1 billion

So not even in the same ball-park tho' agree with you about MPs income

As a family, I fully expect that on paper we will be worse of financially with Labour. However, the only reason it will be like that is because of the horrendous waste of money by the Tories.

I feel society as a whole will be better with Labour and this means more to me than my own personal finances.

It's also refreshing to see some interest in reforming state education.

I completely agree with you.

So is anyone actually happy with any Labour policies or are they just overlooking things they would have pounced on if they were Tory policies because, fabulous Labour.
Labour will need to do more than just not be Tory (although some of their announcements could well have been just that)

Honestly.. how many pensioners do you know who own their own homes , are fit and healthy , who have less than 5k in the bank and do not care for a disabled /poorlly family member . Who also don't have any kind of occupational pension ?

Because that is what we are talking about - and even then in an average D rate council tax band they can claim £30+ a week .. which is £1560
a year.. more Than 3x the winter fuel allowance.. !!

Renting you get housing benefits.
Poorly/disabled you get attendance allowance and pension credit

Caring - underlying entitlement to carers allowance. Which brings you into Pension Credit and WFA

However if you have 16k + then you need to pay your fuel bill ! Until it falls below that ..

How many struggling families have 16k in the bank ?

I know this shot because for 15 years I worked for the pension service as a visiting officer and did literally hundreds of visits to pensioners wanting to claim pension credit but were incensed that I had to take savings into account because ' that is set aside for the kids inheritance and we don't touch that ' ..

This. As KS said himself, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

The Tories have run the country into the ground - it won’t be fixed overnight.

But at what cost? It's easy to say Labour 'ended' the strikes, but they did that by giving in to all the strikers' demands. Any fool could do that.
And as a consequence, they have left the door open for other public sector workers to decide it's easy to get more money so they will strike too.
A very short-sighted decision imho

FFS are you politically illiterate ?

Conservatives would never tackle the WFA !! It's their core voter base !

My parents had a £5k a month income from private pensions, annuities, and 240 k in the bank .. and gave their WFA to charity . Could never understand why they got it.. but still voted Tory because they 'weren't interested in politics'

They despise the taxpayer.

talk to me in a year and see how you feel then.

Yes I'm happy. No I haven't changed my mind. Yes I do expect things to still be tight and taxes etc to go up but that's what was always going to happen after so long under the shower of shit that was the Tories.

What a staggeringly rude response.
I'm not politically illiterate, I just don't agree with you. There is a difference.
I also have the ability to see beyond my own circumstances, which you don't seem to be able to. My mum also does not need the WFA, but I am socially literate enough to realise that not all pensioners are like my mum. I agree not all pensioners should have the allowance, but the cut-off is far too low.
As a pp says, it means those on full state pension are now worse off than those who are not, which cannot be right. It also means I believe that it will make people question if it's worth paying into a pension, if they will be better looked after if they don't.
Not all pensioner are your parents you know.

I'm very happy so far.

They've been on summer recess for most of the time since they've been in power, so even with that in mind they've got loads done.

I like that they're targeting the most well off. The bar has probably been set a little low for the winter fuel allowance but they have to set the boundary somewhere.

Isn't it nice not to have constant news of another government fuck up or another bit of salacious gossip about the PM happily doing something that most people would be embarrassed about?

The best the media can come up with so far is KS ditching maggie's portrait. Theyre lucky he didn't dump it in the nearest skip, tbh.

It wasn’t half as much again if you saw Laura K this morning,,, the £9B+ of this ‘black hole’ is the political decisions he’s made since power, and they’ve also committed billions more to Ukraine etc.

the man is a pillock.. I didn’t vote for him, but I wasn’t unhappy about the result until they started their usual nonsense..

and that’s before the budget.

I'm very happy to have a grown-up as our PM and not a national embarrassment. And that goes for many of the cabinet too.

I'm pleased that our relations with Europe will be more amicable. Although I wish that the possibility of rejoining the EU could be considered.

I'm relieved that the government acted quickly and effectively to quash the riots.

I'm glad that the way asylum seekers are referred to is no longer offensive.

I applaud the decision (remembering Ruth Perry) that Ofsted will no longer be able to define schools with one word.

I agree with the private school fees decision (and I'm not anti private schools).

I think it's fair to means test the WFA however I think they should have set the cut-off higher.

Personally, I'll almost certainly be worse off under Labour but I still largely agree with their priorities.

Thank you Efacsen.

Happy, would vote for them again

No and after 14 yrs of the shit storm of Tory rule, 8 weeks is far too soon to have regret...