To want IDS to crawl back into the primordial slime from whence he came!

[Dawndonnaagain]

Latest leaks on welfare cuts, may just be ideas being posited but still fucking nasty.

The current State Pension is around £113 a week. It isn't exactly mega bucks. Pensioners have the same tax allowance as everyone else so any one with an occupational pension as well pays tax on anything over the basic tax allowance threshold. No. we don't pay NI, but we do still pay tax.

It's not nasty. Pensioners have seen no real fall in their standard of living for years and as the largest sector of benefit recipients need to make their contribution to plugging the gap

The state pension is NOT a fucking benefit not when like my husband you have worked and paid in for 45 years to get it, means tested benefits that some pensioners claim are subject to the same rules as any other MT benefits, for instance my Dads pension will increase by £3 a week but his MT pension credit will DECREASE by £2.00 per week leaving him only £1 better off and his CT has increased so he will actually be poorer from next month.

My Husband who worked and paid in for 45 years and my dad who worked and paid in for 70 years have already made their contributions, unlike many who have never done a hands turn in their lives

Ptolemy which ones are regarded as generous? (Genuine question).

My Husband who worked and paid in for 45 years and my dad who worked and paid in for 70 years have already made their contributions, unlike many who have never done a hands turn in their lives

This.

Howcanitbe as far as I know all over 60s are exempt from prescription charges. There is a box to tick on the prescription form and when DH and I reached 60 the assistant just ticked the box for us. It is a bit of an anomaly as the pension age is rising. DH is still working (not yet pension age) but gets free prescriptions.

The vast majority of pensioners are very well off. Most of the Nations wealth sits that end. They have benefitted from various schemes throughout their lives such as mortgage tax relief, access to free higher education, right to buy after using social housing to get a foot on the ladder (and then pulling the ladder right up after them).

Another idea would be to address the disgrace that is inherited wealth maybe by taxing that at a much higher rate -after all the money made on these estates is often as a result of benefiting from the social conditions/economical advantages mentioned above rather than any real earned wealth.

I'd say £26 K a year tax free is more than generous, Larry.

taxing disability benefits is sick
i do hope people will wake up and just not vote for them

Erm, did you read the bit where this idea has been refuted, Samcro or are you another Pick n Mix Believer?

Out of interest, what happens when Esther pops home to Liverpool?

Do people line the streets to cuddle her?

same old crap kissyboo most working class pensioners like my Dad never got any of the things you mentioned and never got any benefits either my Dad worked 3 jobs when I was young, everything we had my dad worked for without state handouts

Where do you get that figure from Edsgreypatch? The basic tax allowance is about £10,00 so everything a pensioner gets above that is taxed. If it really was £26,000 I would be entitled to quite a good rebate.

Howcanitbe no dentistry isn't free, unless you are on certain benefits. Certainly not just because you are over 60.

Ynbu. that's the Big brave Tories for you though. Targeting the most vulnerable.
Roll on May 7th. Hopefully they'll be out by then.

You do choose to have kids and not work.

Edsgreypatch, that's going to come as news to my friend whose husband died at 49 of pancreatic cancer and who is unable to work due to having to look after her seriously disabled son. If she didn't, he would have to go into 24 hour residential care costing much, much more than the family receives in benefit.

It will also come as news to all those people who have become unemployed because their employers' businesses failed in the recession and who, try as they might, can't find another job.

She means that benefits of £26k are more than generous, Larry, in response to your question at 11:54:01.

...having fallen for another 'dog whistle' tactic.

Make a lot of noise about capping benefits at £26k, and people will believe that is a common amount to receive, as opposed to the tiny % of households it affects - and where it does, it is due to high rents being paid by HB.

Ah, just like the NHS was 'Safe in their Hands' with 'No more top-down reorganisation' and 'No front-line cuts' (oh, and Cameron 'wouldn't means-test child benefit') with a week to go before the last election...?

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/pre-election-pledges-tories-are-trying-wipe-internet

So yeah, sure, of course I believe that these ideas aren't real....

Thank you, Bikket! I've been slightly worried that I seem to be the only person who remembers what the Tories said pre-the last election; Clegg gets slated for tuition fees, but 'no more top-down reorganisation' seems to have been quickly glossed over... even though DC must have known he was lying when he said it, unlike NC.

Ah, thank you Boulevard DH wondered if she meant the recent announcement about getting a lump sum from your pension pot. You can allegedly take 25% of your pension pot as a lump sum, but to get £25,00 you would have to have a pot of £100,00 and DH's financial advisor said the average pension pot is only £30,000.

Back to disability benefits, which ones could be regarded as generous compared with other countries? Anyone know?

The problem with a lot of points made about welfare is they are based on fundamental misconceptions which few politicians are prepared to dispel.

From a recent YouGov survey-

Most voters vastly overstate the amount spent on benefits for the unemployed,the level of fraud and the level of welfare by immigrants.

1. fraud- the poll said voters put it at 22% which would equate to more than 40bn a year received by people fiddling the system. Only 1.2bn is the actual figure. Nowhere near the publics's estimate.

2. 'Welfare Tourism' - there is no official figure for the amount of job seekers, housing benefit,child benefit and child tax credits being claimed by people who have come to Britain in the past 10years. The total cost of these benefits is 76bn / 37% of the total. Recent immigrants comprise of no more than 5 per cent of the population and academic studies indicate they are less likely to receive benefits than British-born people. This implies the figure is 2% of the £205bn total. Public perception averages a vastly inflated 23%.

3. 'Lifestyle Choice' - only a fraction of 1% can be attributed to long term/life choice 'scroungers'. Unemployment benefits comprise of just 2% of all welfare spending.

The media and political focus on stories of welfare abuse and tackling it has shaped the perceptions of the vast majority of voters. The talk of 'culture of dependency' comes from overstating the amount of money going to fraudsters,immigrants and the jobless and taking the focus away from the actual, rather difficult economic truth of the benefits system.

The talk about means testing winter fuel allowance would only save 200m at most /0.1 % of the total welfare bill.

None of the 'popular' welfare reform measures (capping benefits, banning immigrants from claiming until they have lived here for two years, winterfuel allowance being means tested etc) make much of a dent in the £205 bn welfare total.

Of course every political party will duck the main issue that in order to truly tackle the welfare bill a radical overall is needed of benefits going to pensioners today and in future.