Genuine question re pensioner fuel payment cut

[Katypp]

Just this: How would the Labour supporters react if three weeks into a new Conservative Government, the chancellor cut the winter fuel payment to any pensioner with an income of more than £11k?
Would you think it was a reasonable thing to do or would it be considered cruel because it was the Tories implementing it, not Labour?
I would imagine Angela Raynor, Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting would have been very vocal and worried about it.
Would the public finances argument wash if it was a Tory Government? It didn't when Cameron came into power.
What's different?

I have a few questions.

The woman at the start of your post was "working and working" then it turned out that she didn't know who the father of her child was was there an illness or accident involved here?

Then she needed to get a job. I'm assuming that was more difficult given the effects of the undisclosed illness / accident and no longer having the support of the partner who she had forgotten.

Then she needed to accept that the gravy train was over. Are we to understand that she was actually "on the gravy train" all along or the gravy train had dried up somewhere around the time of her accident / illness and job loss

Or, was she lying about working and working, struggling to afford childcare and holiday clubs to allow her to work. In which case, did she also lie about the accident / illness? Did the father ever exist? Do the children?

Are there reasons for the massive lies she is telling? Has there been a mental health assesment? Have SS assessed the safety of the children who are in the sole care of this deranged woman?

Is the WFA part of the gravy train or a separate condiment?

TIA

I think you need to read her post again

Children can't help being born poor!

No, I read it. Bit about a working mother who is moaning.

Then rant about women who lie about not knowing who the father of their child is.

Then she's happy to support the working poor (apparently not the woman at the start of the post).

Then the gravy train ends.

Eh! I never said they could! Read my post properly, I said neither group should suffer.

Yes, your comment about parents with their tongues hanging out oozed empathy.

That wasn't me!

Then I apologise.

That's ok.

I think the issue is that we tend to have more empathy with groups we identify with. So on MN, children are front, centre and back of everything. They are the most important group and every other demographic is secondary to children.
Then you get older and your parents get older, and suddenly you realise that there are other groups that need support as much as children.
No children did not ask to be born, but people do not ask to live far longer than they should due to improved healthcare.
Both are needy, but children do not have a monopoly on need.
Before the election, I said that pensioners' freebies needed looking at, and I still believe this, but I think to remove this payment to everyone with an income of more than around £11k is unbelievably savage and would not be accepted if it was a Tory policy, hence my thread.
Can anyone remember the drama when the temporary UC uplift was cancelled after Covid? Yet apparently people are expecting some of the UK's poorest households to just suck up this new policy.

I can take the loss of the WFA and the £10.00 although I accept others can't.

I do object to taking away free bus passes if they do this. Many pensioners rely heavily on this. I haven't applied for mine yet but I will eventually as I can see me having to give up my car in a few years. Perhaps rather than take it away completely perhaps you could get a travel card like the 16-25 rail card which is subsidised. If it was a dual rail/bus I'd be up for paying for that if it lasted for say 5 years, at the moment I don't use the train enough to buy their senior rail pass

Today for the first time I have actually asked for the concession rate at a visitor centre. Normally I've paid the full price regardless of being entitled to it.

Not that it matters but I voted Lib Dems

My sister is a pensioner. She's moaning about this issue and being poor. She goes out drinking at least four times a week and has just got back from her second holiday this year.

During Covid they were all vulnerable and we had to wear masks to protect them.
Now they are scroungers Back to the default setting
Very telling.

Yes that £27 is likely to be council tax support only. new state pension is just above the pension credit threshold unless you get a disability benefit which hugely increases the pension credit applicable amount.

Yes it is. So without disability benefits the person is far worse off

Just this: How would the Labour supporters react if three weeks into a new Conservative Government, the chancellor cut the winter fuel payment to any pensioner with an income of more than £11k?

It wouldn’t bother me, in fact I’ve long thought the winter fuel allowance and other pensioner benefits like a bus pass etc should be means tested.
The current system seems to be able to means test free school meals, child benefit, in work top ups etc. it’s always been entirely workable to means test it in the current system, it’s simply been a bribe not to.

I know too many very well off pensioners who still have been collecting the winter fuel allowance. Even FIL using his free over 60 bus pass to commute to his high salary consulting job while DH and I pay full whack to get to work on much lower salaries!

Yes. It's the disability benefit which makes people hugely better off,not just with the disability benefit itself but the increased likelihood of getting pension credit. And I'm really not being funny when I say that Attendance allowance is a lot easier to get then PIP.

It's always disability benefits that bring in the money it seems

There will likely be no money left by that point ! seeing what i see each week in my job and the number of people claiming and the amounts they are receiving I just don't personally see how it is sustainable, especially with increasing numbers of pensioners and people living longer often with disabilities. It would not surprise me if they cut or change the criteria for disability benefits next.

Attendance allowance is very much geared around needing help to eat, dress, wash - very basic things. If someone can not do this they either get someone to do it for free, or have to pay for carers.

@2dogsandabudgie *Why do people not understand that elderly people feel the cold more. They are more likely because of their age to have other health problems.

Working age people can move about more, many will go to work where it's warm, elderly people often have mobility problems so don't go out much. Are some people really that callous that they are ok with this?*

Babies young children feel and are more vulnerable to the cold, but there’s no winter fuel allowance for them.

Also, this comment along with others is being totally disingenuous, the WFA isn’t being scrapped entirely, just means tested. Those who need it will still get it.

Thats not the fault of the pensioners. Govenments knew the baby boom was eventually going to end up as a big cohort of pensioners. They have all done nothing to prepare

While being vilified and moaned at for it

You have to be more disabled to get Attendance Allowance than you do to get PIP.

I don't agree with this at all. PIP is very hard to get, Attendance allowance relatively easy. I assist people with both.