To be raging at Dispatches "rich and on benefits"

[crashdoll]

It's talking about pensioners and all they get from the welfare state regardless of income or savings. Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits.

i turned it off.

Repeat after me "do not watch Dispatches"

It's always daily mail-esque tripe imo, poorly researched and overly dramatic

Que 100 threads from people having seen this programme in a rage about all the 'scroungers' living it up.

BreasticlesNTesticles It doesn't change facts though. Btw what a great username!

Well it would be unfair to ask anyone to pay the NI contributions if there was no chance of a pension because they had saved, wouldn't it?

The title of the programme is ridiculous but the content is spot on.

I am sick of everyone whinging on about people ripping off the welfare state and we have very, very rich pensioners having money thrown at them just because they vote and every Government is too scared to do anything about it!

Make pension aged benefits means tested and then re-invest the money into the welfare state to help the really vulnerable.

Jesus Christ Peter Stringfellow couldn't even give his money back when he asked

It's talking about pensioners and all they get from the welfare state regardless of income or savings. Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits.

Do you want the government to take the pensioners benefits?

I'm not sure what your rage is all about really

It's not the pension. It's the winter fuel allowance, cold weather payments, free prescriptions, free eyes tests, £10 Christmas bonus for extremely wealthy individuals. Where is the justice in DLA being abolished, child benefit being means tested, a bedroom tax be introduced when wealthy people are promised immunity from the welfare cuts?!

my dad spent his winter fuel allowance having his new jag valeted

This is so true! There are 5 peolple in my / husband's family in their 80s/ 90s, all on fantastic pensions, the women on 3 of then, getting free tv licences etc. it's crazy!!

Right okay, I don't know where I stand with that actually...

About time this seemingly taboo subject was addressed. Not a day goes by when I don't feel mad about how little pensioners and baby boomers (the well off ones) have suffered during this downturn. All my parents friends are living it up - foreign holidays, home improvements, new cars...

Nothing will be done about it - the grey vote is sacred.

To be fair they are looking at pensioner poverty now

it was irritating to start with though

this is something i have raged about for ages. all my friends and i have very comfortable parents (own property in barnes and chiswick and have great pensions etc). my parents go on about other people on benefits but when i point out they do not need their benefits they get defensive. also it is their generations fault we are in this housing mess. they 'earned' money by inflating property prices and left the rest of us fucked.

it should all be means tested imo.

But we all know that if they did means test state pensions, it would be the middle and lower end people who would be missing out. It wouldn't affect the truly rich anyway, whether they got a state pension or not.

It's already bad enough that they take people's family homes.

Why thank you!

I can't comment directly as I would have to watch the programme, and past experience tells me I will get very shouty.

However, I agree that winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments should be means tested, my DP's need neither for example.

However, when you move into free medical care, then that would be bound up in NI contributions and the fact pensioners no longer pay into the contributory fund. However, they have to have paid a minimum to obtain these "benefits" so I would argue that is fair. Otherwise we would be in a situation where healthcare would not be free if you earned a certain amount for example.

I think what I find infuriating is the attitude of these people that they are entitled to this money whether they need it or not. One chap said that he was worried that if they cut pensioners' benefits the money might go to people who don't deserve it.

I was also extremely irritated by the chap who said he had earned every penny and luck had nothing to do with it so no acknowledgement of the advantages a booming economy gave their generation. I'm sure I read recently that most baby boomers retiring now have had more out of the system already by the time they retire than they have ever paid in.

Oh it's all feeding into the 'divide and conquer'.

My FIL always go for a nice dinner with there winter fuel alownace and he is very well off

Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits
The older generation vote. He wont touch them. That is politics.

What fucks me off is the most is Scameron's "we're all in this together" but he forgot to add that he's excluding the wealthy penisioners.

Trouble is, lots of pensioners are asset-rich (housing) but cash poor. So if you means-tested them, you'd have to count in their housing & by implication boot them out of their homes if they were to get anything.

I don't think even the few non-pensioners who vote would fall for that.

Unless we are unlucky, we will all be pensioners one day. I don't see anything wrong with pensioners getting benefits. We should all be able to expect something back from the pot we pay into towards the end of our lives.

Crashdoll, the cold weather payment is not a universal pensioners' benefit. Only those on income support or similar receive it. Youthecat , you are right about the withdrawal of other benefits hitting only the middle and lower end. As you age you start needing a whole host of medicines, and paying for these would be very hard on many pensioners.