I'm unbelievably ill informed and stupid.

[Lola247]

Can anyone explain the budget to me in simple terms please?

Seems to work for lots of countries. The scenario you suggest is quite rare.

The winter fuel allowance cut saves the government £1.4 billion. Cutting the cost of a pint of beer will cost the government less than £100 million. I suspect those involved thought it was good retail politics, as there are more draught beer drinkers than pensioners (and many of the pensioners who are losing winter fuel allowance vote for the Tories anyway). However, if the cut to winter fuel allowance leads to everyone entitled to pension credit taking it up, it will actually cost the government money.

😆 Tories don't in fight? The whole fucking Brexit debacle was an attempt by that idiot Cameron to stop in fighting in the party. And all it did was made things worse!

That’s true. I didn’t say they didn’t do it though…
They do tend to be less public about it. Anyway, Johnson sacked anyone with a different opinion so since then there’s a very homogeneous viewpoint in the PCO.

I was talking from experience of living under this situation along with everyone else in Scotland...

I’m in Wales. Same situation. Different result.

Pensioners are already claiming pension credit, there’s a minority of pensioners who didn’t know they were eligible, because most people claiming pension credits, were on benefits before and then moved onto pension credits.The people, who now trying to claim pension credits, many haven’t met the criteria

Fair enough…

they all accuse themselves and to be honest. They are all to blame 🤷🏼‍♀️

Pension credit is a pittance. Proportionately benefits for retired people are far far more stingy than for families. Unless a pensioner is getting extra for disabilities they will hardly afford to heat their homes or eat properly.

Yes, some are already claiming pension credit. However, according to the government's estimates, only 63% of those eligible for pension credit are currently claiming. If they all claim, that will add £2.2 billion to government spending if we assume the average annual award for these new claimants is £2,677 (the average for current claimants is £3,900).

Also, pension credit unlocks other benefits. If the new pension credit claimants take these up, the cost to the government will be considerably higher.

There have already been over 50,000 new pension credit claims since the withdrawal of winter fuel allowance was announced - well ahead of the normal rate (and well ahead of what the government expected when it announced this change). If this carries on, the policy will, as I say, end up costing the government money.

I should have said in my post, some pensioners are really going to struggle, due to they’ve tried to claim pension credit and just missed out on the means tested criteria eg £20 etc and as you said pension credit unlocks other financial support.
My mum has lost the WFA, so l do understand, for some pensioners it’s going to be really difficult and for this reason pension credit threshold criteria should be a bit higher, l do understand there has to be cut off point though, however the WFA needed to be means tested, as many pensioners will agree not everyone really needs it.

Er, the 'usually pro Labour BBC' ???
What planet are you living on??
Laura Kuensberg in particular is notoriously right wing!

The BBC is more than one person though

BBC definitely has a left wing bias even if there is the occasional right wing commentator to make it not look too obvious.

No, it doesn’t. Not in its news and current affairs. Look at the management. It’s very pro Tory currently.

If the BBC was scrapped which party would benefit more?

No. You need to read/watch/listen to the news and form your own opinion.

Labour supporters tend to think that. The general public mostly don't know or think the BBC is neutral. Around 18% think it is biased towards the Tories, 23% think it is biased towards Labour. That doesn't mean the general public is right, of course.

Amongst Labour supporters, 27% think the BBC is biased towards the Tories as do 25% of LibDem supporters, whereas 47% of Tories think it is biased towards Labour.

If the BBC was wrapped up tomorrow, what news station would you tune to? Presuming that you are seeking an unbiased accurate account of what's going on in the world?

The BBC is a golden nugget of soft power. It's trusted everywhere people want news or are trying to improve their English. For that reason alone it's funding should be protected and increased. It's worth much much more than the Foreign Office.

I think if Labour thought the BBC was biased towards Conservatives they'd be mad to get rid of it for that reason

It would most certainly benefit the other parties

I'm not arguing for it to happen, but I think the question shows who benefits if it's gone

I rely on the BBC although I listen to the World Service daily rather than R4 as much (although like the Reith lectures and other science \ political programmes), including a very interesting piece on how the WS stops the lack of free press in many other countries. Very meta

I really don't give a stuff whether the BBC leans a little left or a little right. At the end of the day, I value the opinions of the (CLEVER) people the BBC recruiters comb out of universities and teach to share their ideas via TV and radio. We are all enriched by it, and they sell the programmes all over the world, and so the UK has a mahoosive TV production market. Premier League Football (I don't watch it personally) sells everywhere, so does Jeremy Clarkson. You may not like him, but ordinary, quite nice, men like DH find cars fascinating, and farms too.

I do as it should be impartial

But I value the WS hugely and think we should keep translating that so more countries run it. When we pull out it tends to work against us

The coverage of trans issues would more correctly be called propaganda.

As long as the NHS is fine, I’m happy. 😊