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.

Both my parents were children in the war, evacuated. Both have lots of tales to tell of what it was like. Both still living in their own home.

So? Your example proves precisely nothing about any generation. It's one person.

This, with bells on.

OP, your parents may clear £7k a month but most 'boomers' do not. Employer pensions only became compulsory in 2018. For every wealthy boomer, there are several who have nothing but the state pension of £220 a week. And no they can't claim pension credit, and yea, they may well freeze this winter. Let's pray the weather is kind to them because they certainly can't look to this dreadful govt for support.

I suggest you educate yourself.

www.nam.ac.uk/explore/what-was-national-service

In the 1950's, British soldiers were involved in the Korean War, Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, Anglo Egyptian war, Cyprus emergency among others.
As an aside, I be only found out recently that Harold Wilson repeatedly refused to send British soldiers to Vietnam in the 70's.

Why don’t younger people in poverty get WFP?

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

I don’t think people think this, obviously if you are discussing statistics there will always be outliers but I’m not sure what else we can use apart from statistics?

Born 1955. Don't consider myself to be the wartime generation. That was my parents born 1917 and 1820, married 1940.

This is genuinely one of the most embarrassing threads I’ve ever seen on mumsnet, I can’t decided whether I think this is a joke! Around 50,000 people died in around a year during the Blitz in the UK. Some of my family members were killed during it. Two million homes were bombed being damaged or destroyed. You desperately need a history lesson, this is primary school level stuff…

Only by those stupid enough to be determined to categorise ( in order to bash) people by age.
There are well off and very poor people in every age band. But I am utterly sick of " my inlaws have money therefore all older people do". NOT TRUE

Younger people can take on more employment, work extra hours. Younger people are generally more physically fit.When a skint 20yo student, I worked in a pub in the evenings which kept me warm and gave me a cash boost.

Many old people are frail, need more warmth to survive, cannot work.

My Mum was born in 1936, she very much remembers the war, and will just miss out on her WFA. I can’t believe the Labour Party chose to pick on this most vulnerable group of people.

Eh? How can you live through something that happened 10 years before you were born?

Younger people can take on more employment, work extra hours. Younger people are generally more physically fit.When a skint 20yo student, I worked in a pub in the evenings which kept me warm and gave me a cash boost.

But young families may not have the capacity to take on more work. Not every person under 60 in poverty is a 20 yr old student.

And not everyone who received the universal WFP was frail or poor.

Because they're not as physically vulnerable. Those on very low incomes and certain benefits get cold weather payments, though.

Your ignorance is astounding. 43,000 civilians were killed in the London blitz. Over 100,000 were injured. How can you say that not many people in the UK experienced the war because" there was no invasion /firestorm / atom bomb". Talk to my mother who watched the London docks burning ,who sat terrified in air shelters as bombs fell from the sky above, who stepped out into London streets that were demolished wondering if her home was still there ,and tell her she didn't experience war.

@PickAChew Thanks, I didn’t know about the cold weather payments.

Interesting question.

They used to, or something like it, but it's been quietly shelved. Happened a few years ago, just when the "cap" (if you can even call it that any more) got raised to stratospheric levels.

Now you have to approach your fuel company, cap in hand, let them access your Bank statements etc, and maybe you'll get a discretionary payment. So ofc most people don't.

I mean I think child benefit/family allowance should still be universal like it used to be. Im also pretty sure they will raise the age of free prescriptions. It doesn’t make sense to have WF as universal simply because of age. I see the argument re cut offs but isn’t this true for all benefits?

43000 is a lot but it's fuck all compared to Dresden, Leningrad, Hiroshima.

And it was all a long time ago and has nothing to do with winter fuel payments.

I have no idea how many 90+ year olds there still are living independently, but I have 6 in my extended family (my parents' generation).
They range from 98 to 90.

They were all affected by rationing during their childhood, teen years and/or young adulthood.

Some were evacuated.

They were all affected by national service, either personally or because their boyfriends/future husbands served (some during the war and some just after).

They don't all need the winter fuel allowance, but in my view they all deserve to be described as the wartime generation, even though the youngest was still a child when war ended.

@HauntedBungalow that figures.

I do think there is a lazy assumption that all elderly people must have lived through the war and remember it well. An ex-neighbour of ours who is in his early 70s was quite unimpressed at being invited out to some sort of entertainment specifically targeted at the elderly where the music was all Vera Lynn and Gracie Fields - as he pointed out, in his teens and twenties he was listening to Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Not the wartime generation, he clearly meant it as some mawkish phrase to evoke sympathy

A wartime generation means people old enough to be adults during the war, people who served during the war

A bit of rationing in the late 40's and 50's does not mean anything compared to the adults (vast majority dead) who actually served

My grandparents served in the war - my grandfather would have been 105 now, my father born almost at the end - obviously remembered nothing (if alive he would have been 81)

The wartime generation are dead