To think the only reason they're protecting pensions is to buy votes?

[Callani]

Am I the only one who's really cross about the latest pledge to protect OAP benefits when everyone else is being thrown under the bus?

In an ideal world we wouldn't have to be going through cuts, but we are and it seems that certain groups (under 25s in particular) are being targeted to over protect OAPs when many already benefit from final salary pensions and massive increase in the price of their properties.

It just makes me angry that they're planning to "triple lock" pensions when the state pension has already risen 24% in 5 years and they're cutting so many other things more harshly to fund it. Plus there's the more selfish fact that by the time I retire (probably at 75) there probably won't be a state pension anyway and my private pension will be worth about 10p a week so that makes me grumpy.

Is this not the epitome of mortgaging your future generations to pay for luxuries right now (or something better phrased and more eloquent)???

Oh look the left wing Daily Mirror is printing scare story about winter fuel allowance being cut.

All parties are just as bad as each other on pensioner 'hot button' issues.

I think for many pensioners the winter fuel allowance can be a life saver - it seems wrong in an affluent western country that doesn't even have especially extreme weather, that every year during a cold snap elderly people die of hypothermia.

But, a hell of a lot don't need it, or any of their other benefits, just as many people don't need child benefit. I think fine to protect pensions but the rest of it needs looking at, if for no other reason than to show that yes, we are all in it together!

Arf at the idea that I'm going to get any form of state pension. There won't be a universal state pension and/or the retirement age will exceed 100 by the time I'm old enough to consider retiring.

Luckily I'm in the position of having a good occupational pensions scheme (albeit tied to state retirement age, so it will likely never materialise either). Oh well, at least my children can get a nice death in (interminable) service lump sum when I die, which they can use to buy themselves an annuity of some kind. At least someone might get some kind of pension from my savings.

asnnjoys me that scumeron and his minions are saying 'we will do this/that/the other if we are elected next time''.

no., you are in power NOW. so something NOW. you said you would last time and you've done F.A.

My mother spends her winter fuel allowance in Majestic and uses her bus pass to go to the Ballet at Covent Garden

My mother never worked - she is on a Widows company pension that makes her a higher rate taxpayer

She gets OAP rates relief on her band H houses

Justify that

Pension isn't a lot just googled and it £110.10 per week.

If the basic state pension was the only income for a pensioner, it would be topped up by £35 a week in pension credit, which is also a gateway to other benefits.
Perhaps this is not enough in your opinion, but how much is enough?

but should the state pension go to people who have never worked who have other sources of income that put them in the top 20% of earners?

and should they get a bus pass?

and the winter fuel payment - when they choose to live alone in a 6 bedroom house?

And if £145.10 a week isn't enough excluding rent or council tax than how the hell does this govt reconcile that with knowing that carers receive £59.75 a week and unemployed single people are expected to survive on between £56.80 and £71.70?

If it is near impossible to exist on £145.10 a week, isn't it about time this govt woke up and accepted that it must be absolutely impossible to survive on carers allowance or indeed unemployment benefit??

I know there is an argument to say that people on JSA can improve their situation by finding employment, but most carers cannot and as we all know, jobs are scarce atm.

I don't think pensioners should be on less income btw, only that other benefit recipients should be on more.

and Gideon this morning on the Today programme refused to back away from stopping all under 25's getting housing benefit

So you go to school, you go to University, you work for a couple of years in a new home town, you lose your job
and then Gideon makes you lose your house as well because you are only 23
nice one

The government spends its time doing 2 things, doesn't it:

1. changing the status quo as quickly as it can in favour of the very rich (ie the members of the government and their families and friends); 2)doing the minimum it needs to do to ensure that it stays in power so that it can continue with 1). This means bribing those who they need to vote Tory and may decide not to. They don't need to worry about those who are really unlikely to vote Tory - eg the young poor, public sector workers, northerners.

I don't think that "doing the right thing" for the population as a whole comes into it at all. This really dawned on me when I heard a couple of Tories debating policy on the radio. There wasn't one word about trying to improve things, sort out problems, help people etc. The only thing in their heads was how to buy necessary votes as easily as possible, while retaining their (personal) privileges.

At the risk of opening up another can of worms there is also the issue of free prescriptions. Should wealthy pensioners get all their medicines free of charge? In fact, should anybody?

Piscivorous - no, wealthy pensioners should not get all their prescriptions free of charge.

The prescription charge system is ludicrous - only a small percentage of people actually pay them. Why not make it so that everyone pays £2 or even £1 apart from the very poor/sick?

Hester My thought is the same except I think means testing would cost more than it is worth so everybody should pay a token charge. I suspect it would reduce the NHS drugs bill considerably.

The entitled pensioner attitude happens up and down the socio economic scale.

My MIL is a pensioner in an old working class area and owns a small 2 bed house and has a state and local authority widow's pension she finds hard to spend.

She relates the common observation of people she knows very well who live in the local authority sheltered accommodation typically old Labour in mindset, often having been made redundant from nationalised industry under the hated Thatcher,and then having worked the system and gone 'on the sick' and often never worked since.

They live entirely on benefits with accomodation, TV licence and communal heating bills paid for by the local council or with a small nominal charge yet still collecting a full state pension. MIL relates how they often go to the GP 'just because they can' to get repeat free prescriptions for all sorts of creams and over the counter medicines which they don't use and then distributing them to friends and family.

Just a mindset of pure entitlement to get as much 'free' stuff as possible and still whining that their pension is not high enough whilst in some cases spending every spare penny down the bingo or pub.

They are really not in need.

DMs Pensioner friend is rather well off. Own house and good settlement and is never in 'need' of any money. His WFP goes towards a cruise or Holiday each year and his weekly pension goes straight into his savings account as he has an 'allowance' from a deceased relative. I think the WFP should be replaced by a voucher just to ensure it is used solely for the intended purposes.

I think the WFP should be replaced by a voucher just to ensure it is used solely for the intended purposes.

That wouldn't really work though, because you'd just use the voucher to pay for fuel and the money you would have used to pay for fuel to pay for your cruise. The only difference it might make is to pensioners living in hot countries where they don't need to pay for fuel at all.

I will be comfortable when I retire. Working all life does that for you. I am not before I get jumped on talking about the genuinely ill and the carers - I am talking about people who make a lifestyle choice to give nothing back to society.

Handcream
I will be comfortable when I retire. Working all life does that for you
BILGE
I've worked ever since graduating, but I've worked for small employers, part time and self employment so have no pension provision at all.

Those with pensions got lucky
and many of those pensions are funded by sucking funds from those of us without them.

what happens with fulltime carers then? I used to work fulltime in offices and the like but then DC came along disabled from birth and now Im disabled and on top of that a fulltime lifelong carer for her.

don't I get some pension type thing when im of age? not that I can ever retire from fulltime caring.

DH and I have also both worked since graduating but we've both been made redundant several times and now neither of us can find full time or permanent jobs. Our pensions will be laughable..

Working all your life is no guarantee of a decent pension.

Going on a cruise is cheaper than going into a care home. Saves the country lots of money. Especially if you die on the cruise.