Nick Robinson on the Today programme said that people affected by withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance were "the wartime generation". AIBU to think he's wrong?

[HauntedBungalow]

Also, I am genuinely bored of this British obsession with referencing World War II when talking about unrelated random subjects.

World War II ended 80 years ago. The "wartime generation" don't need a Winter Fuel Allowance because they're all already dead, barring the odd 97 year old who is still living at home and paying all bills themselves.

They did their National Service during the 50s in conflicts too.

Which conflicts are those then? There wasn't conscription in the 1950s. Who were they fighting? Just people they encountered randomly?

Poor FIL. Tell him you’ve found a way to claim it and pay it into his account yourself with an official sounding reference. That’s what we’re doing for a similar situation. Our senior now expects their WFA on 1 October (and will get it).

@HauntedBungalow that is embarrassing for you.

My grandparents, who were war generation and have sadly all died over the last few years, probably needed the money. They had small state/ widows pensions and had to pay for home help etc.

My baby boomer parents with a combination of their final salary and state pensions clear about 7k per month. (Public sector/middle management pensions. We were MC but not wealthy) They have long paid off the mortgage on the house that they bought for a fraction of what it is now worth. They have significant savings and investments and have also recently inherited lump sums from their parents. They really really don't need the winter fuel allowance.

We really need to rebalance the economy towards support for working aged people and families who have seen wages fall far behind COL (unlike pensions).

The way they have chosen to means test it seems rather blunt, however. The idea of using attendance allowance or disability status instead would seem like a reasonable idea. Or even just upping the age limit to say 85+ which would allow continued support the most vulnerable.

I actually think using disability benefits in some way makes the most sense. But then I would also include non pension aged recipients who had the highest level of need. Housebound people with disabilities, whatever their age, must struggle with winter heating costs.

Seriously, where did they fight?

My uncle fought in the Korean war but he was paid for it because he was in the navy. He wasn't fighting alongside national service folk.

National Service WAS a form of conscription. And i bet you would have no trouble describing it as such if your kids were made to do it.
DM is 88 And at 8 years old had to work in the fields to help my gran while my grandfather was conscripted into the Italian Army. Remember not all pensioners are British and those who had their childhood in other countries will have experienced the war differently

I was born in 1950, and completely agree with you.

Yeah this is true. Sometimes completely nonsensically too.

An example is Grandfather in law. 80s. Independent. Since the fuel price nightmare and the Russia invasion he will not put the gas heating on. Says he’s not spending that much and it’s his way of standing up to putin.

Instead he uses an electric heater to blow hot air under a blanket which he drapes over his feet propped on a footstool. Like some kind of human body hot tent.

I have expressed many times he’s likely to set himself on fire. It is concerning.

This might be an interesting link. Lots of conflicts going on at the time,

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/national-service-experience

Between 1947 and 1963, a total of 395 National Servicemen were killed on active service.

I presume he means people like my parents who were born during the war.

My GF did National Service and ended up in Egypt in the aftermath of the Suez "crisis".

According to the man himself, the only fighting he ever got close to was scaring off Bedouins who would steal anything the Army hadn't nailed down, and sometimes that didn't even stop them. He did say though that in order to go to town or deliver mail, you had to do so in a Scout car because the same Bedouins were fond of taking potshots at the Brits.

The other did his NS just after the war but was never posted to any active combat zone, unless you include some of the rougher parts of a few of the UK's larger cities.

My eldest GP guarded prisoners of war toward the end of WWII, which was seemingly a fairly common duty for women in active service.

OP, there were plenty of women and children who weren't fighting but they had to cope with being bombed out of their homes. Or whose dads didn't come back so they grew up in poverty with widowed mums. There was no UC.

And plenty of children who dads came back so damaged, mentally and physically, that life afterwards was very difficult.

Meat rationing did not end until 1954. You couldn't go and buy what you wanted, even if you had money.

I imagine this is who is referred to as the wartime generation.

Oh ok. Well there are still countries now with conscripts that fight, Israel and so on. But in the UK conscription to active service ended with WWII, and national service after that was mostly a bit of a jolly or, in times of low employment, a way of keeping lads off the street.

Some of the servicemen on Christmas Island when the atomic bomb was being tested were on National Service. Are you one of those MNers who had a uni education. Wasted if you did.

@HauntedBungalow all men had to do their national service, the majority in the armed forces.

There was Korea, Cyprus, Malaya and Kenya amongst others. Why do you think men doing their National Service weren’t fighting in Korea ?

Huh? It's just used as a description of a group of people, like saying 'Gen Z' or whatever. The wartime generation id take to mean as born during the war rather than having fought in the war.

I think over 70s or over 75s should get it by the way. I'm a labour voter but of all the things to tackle first, taking money from pensioners shouldn't have been the priority.

Yes. I had a Great Uncle who was present for the CI tests during his NS. He died in the 70's due to multiple cancers, no doubt due to his NS "jolly".

Yet again I am horrified by this the sweeping assumptions about baby boomers. There not an homogeneous group. For every boomer that grew up in the land of milk of honey there are plenty others that have lived in poverty all their lives. There are plenty others whose entire heritage, living and community was swept away in the Thatcher years. You parents and their circle do not represent all boomers, just a few lucky ones.

As we're on R4 with one, they were also reporting that there Millennials are the generation that will benefit from the biggest transfer of generational wealth in history. Does that mean all Millennials. No, and it just as stupid to generalise with boomers.

The way world's going, we may have another wartime generation. Let's see how dismissive we are then.

My gran was wartime, she remembers having to go into the air raid shelters and is now paying all her own bills/ lives at home still.

Also my mum, born just a few years after the war.

So yes, definitely wartime generation.

Im sorry to hear that @XDownwiththissortofthingX There was a programme on Channel 5 recently Britains Atomic Bomb Scandal

My mum was born in 1938, she brings in £600 a week in pensions alone, not counting her stocks and shares, her savings and her premium bond winnings ( at least £100 a month there ) . Shes been donating her WFA to the RNLI ever since she received it

My gran was 10 the day the 2nd WW ended she lost all her brothers. She was evacuated twice and remembers bombers flying overhead to bomb the Clyde. Her sister was in the women’s brigade who worked in the farms. No they are absolutely not all dead! In their 80s and 90s and sitting in cold houses warming 1 room and eating ready meals and toast as they can’t get out to shops and practically no care apart from family popping in. What a silly comment. In another 10/15 years they might be but then who knows we might all be!
and yes it was a silly thing to say though I never heard him but I can vouch for many pensioners I look after in 70s and 80s unable to heat more than 1 room and living on meagre meals. Perhaps it should be means tested or something.

Gosh, how ridiculous. Being old enough to vaguely remember a war that you didn’t fight in is meaningless. I remember a number of wars that I didn’t fight in. What does that mean for me? What do I get?

It's all a bit bloody tenuous though isn't it. Most working class people in the 30s/40s had awful living conditions, dangerous working conditions. Sure you were more likely to be killed in a steelworks making armaments, as a working 14 yo school leaver, than you were to be killed by a bomb, in the UK. It's not like the continent where entire areas got razed and cities starved and invaded, and actually as a regular citizen then as now your biggest enemy was the industry owners and land owners and there wasn't anything heroic about any of it.

But ofc it's probably better for the folks who have all the money now, to keep on churning out this bullshit about how the greatest threat was from Abroad.

👏 👏 👏 Totally agree OP!