New Labour government - legislative agenda

[Smokeandsteam]

Isn't it you who needs to be informing folk what their alternative action should have been - the folk who should be ashamed of themselves?

No. It isn’t. It’s on them.

 

[Silas Loom]

Heating is a big issue. Disabled people tend to need more heating, as do old people. Combine the two - need even more heating.

And OMG Silas, as a number of posters have pointed out, loads of older people don't apply for what they're entitled to, for the reasons they've explained.

Why? It’s not intuitively obvious.

 

[Silas Loom]

Disability intersects massively with poverty.

Much more so, the younger someone becomes disabled. Which, again, is less likely to apply to pensioners en masse and even to disabled pensioners en masse.

 

[Silas Loom]

Didn’t think it was possible for Loom to plumb new depths

You’ll be horrified when you read what this unfeeling bastard said:

NI has traditionally been a tax on employment, whereas income tax is also due on non-employment income. My professional view is that the merging / harmonising will happen over time, but there will be objections to this from the lobbying groups that represent pensioners who are already bribed with the triple lock etc

Pitchforks ahoy!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why? It’s not intuitively obvious.

For starters, older people have bodies with a weakened ability to regulate temperature. They're more susceptible both to the cold and to extreme heat. This also applies to many disabled people.

A two-second google. That's all you needed.

eg:

The hazards of a cold home can affect any age group but elderly adults are especially vulnerable.

There are lots of reasons for this. Partly, it’s because advanced age affects how well we can regulate our body temperature.

Another factor is the fact that older adults are more likely to be living with underlying medical conditions which make them more susceptible to cold temperatures. Also, some of these conditions can become more serious – even life threatening -when it’s cold.

What’s more, the cold can also suppress our immunity and make us more vulnerable to serious chest infections.

It can also affect mobility and increase the likelihood of falling over or suffering a serious accidental injury.

Indoor temperatures below 16 degrees centigrade can make us more prone to chest infections.

Prolonged indoor temperatures (lasting more than two hours) between 9-12 degrees centigrade can cause core body temperature to drop, blood pressure to rise and increase the risk of serious blood circulation problems.

When the indoor temperature is 5 degrees centigrade or lower, there is a significant risk of developing hypothermia.

Cold Homes: Health Risks to Older People - The Carents Room

To add to the points in that link, another reason older and disabled people need more heating is because they are likely to move more slowly. They can't get up and do star jumps if they're feeling a bit chilly.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Much more so, the younger someone becomes disabled. Which, again, is less likely to apply to pensioners en masse and even to disabled pensioners en masse.

Translation: younger disabled people are also impacted by austerity, so it’s okay to take the WFA off 73% of older disabled people.

Sounds like the usual young v old bollocks beloved of the liberal left right? Let the old disabled suffer like the younger disabled etc..

But as this report makes clear poverty levels among older people with a disability will increase significantly from 18% to 29% - which compares to a projected increase in poverty in the non-disabled older population from 17% to 19% - before the WFA cut is factored in:

Pensioner poverty could almost double in next 15 years: new research predicting a surge in financial hardship in later life

New report projects that almost one in four, or 3.9 million older people could be in poverty by 2040.Independent Age says stark findings should be a “wake-up call” for political parties across the UKNumber of older private renters, who are much more likely to be in financial hardship, set to...

www.independentage.org

 

[Silas Loom]

Translation: younger disabled people are also impacted by austerity, so it’s okay to take the WFA off 73% of older disabled people.

Your translator is up the spout. The point was that older disabled people are very likely to have become disabled after a full working life and to have private pensions, savings, and equity.

Younger disabled people don’t have that financial independence, and as they reach middle age, perhaps outliving their primary carers, they are much more likely to be dependent on benefits and other kinds of public assistance.

 

[Elpenor]

You’ll be horrified when you read what this unfeeling bastard said:



Pitchforks ahoy!

Selective and desperate quoting there.

That post is a professional view based speculating about the future of taxation.

I don’t see how its controversial to call it a Tory bribe towards pensioners who make up most of their voters. Semantics aside, I wasn’t calling for it to be stopped.

 

[Silas Loom]

Selective and desperate quoting there.

That post is a professional view based speculating about the future of taxation.

I don’t see how its controversial to call it a Tory bribe towards pensioners who make up most of their voters. Semantics aside, I wasn’t calling for it to be stopped.

Semantics lol.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Bottom line, though, is that universalism works. Perhaps someone who thinks this change is a good idea can give us some numbers on that? What percentage of pensioners in need are missed by the current universal system of payment? What percentage will be missed by a means-tested payment? How many extra deaths will that cause per winter?

If you can't answer that question (and the government can't answer it currently), you have no business even having an opinion, let alone being given the power to change policy.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Your translator is up the spout. The point was that older disabled people are very likely to have become disabled after a full working life and to have private pensions, savings, and equity.

Younger disabled people don’t have that financial independence, and as they reach middle age, perhaps outliving their primary carers, they are much more likely to be dependent on benefits and other kinds of public assistance.

Nah, my transition is bang on. Whilst I suspect you are making most of the ‘facts’ supporting your shite argument up, your basic point is that the old should suffer because they’ve been privileged versus other groups.

All these disabled pensioners living in the lap of luxury have got it coming eh?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Bottom line, though, is that universalism works.

That is it. Precisely.

 

[Pickman's model]

Why? It’s not intuitively obvious.

It is if you think about it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Your translator is up the spout. The point was that older disabled people are very likely to have become disabled after a full working life and to have private pensions, savings, and equity.

Pensions, private or otherwise, interest on savings, etc, are all taxable income. There are alternative mechanisms to take some of their wealth from them, mechanisms that are much more targetted than this one.

It's disingenuous to disregard the other options available to any government that is set on removing universal benefits or payments.

 

[teuchter]

No. It isn’t. It’s on them.

You've lost me. What's on them?

 

[Pickman's model]

Didn’t think it was possible for Loom to plumb new depths

He leads a troglodyte existence

 

[Smokeandsteam]

You've lost me. What's on them?

Their decision to vote for Starmer and Reeves is on them.

 

[Silas Loom]

Pensions, private or otherwise, interest on savings, etc, are all taxable income. There are alternative mechanisms to take some of their wealth from them, mechanisms that are much more targetted than this one.

It's disingenuous to disregard the other options available to any government that is set on removing universal benefits or payments.

But that’s irrelevant to what I’m arguing, which is simply that support for the disabled should be targeted to the disabled, according to their specific needs, and offering what that nice Mr Elpenor calls “bribes” only to the elderly cohort which happens to include lots of people with some degree of disability is a strange way to go about things.

 

[Dystopiary]

All these disability and anti-poverty campaigners, what do they know, eh?

Save the Winter Fuel Payment | Age UK

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You've been arguing lots of things, tbf. For example, you've been arguing that means-testing is progressive.

 

[Silas Loom]

All these disability and anti-poverty campaigners, what do they know, eh?

Save the Winter Fuel Payment | Age UK

Age UK is what nice Mr Elpenor would call a pensioner “lobby group”, I believe.

 

[Silas Loom]

You've been arguing lots of things, tbf. For example, you've been arguing that means-testing is progressive.

Yep, stand by that one, if regressivity and its opposite need to be invoked.

 

[Dystopiary]

But that’s irrelevant to what I’m arguing, which is simply that support for the disabled should be targeted to the disabled, according to their specific needs, and offering what that nice Mr Elpenor calls “bribes” only to the elderly cohort which happens to include lots of people with some degree of disability is a strange way to go about things.

You didn't even know why older and/or disabled people might need more heating. Yet here you are basically telling us you know better than people who've built up years of research into poverty, disability and old age. Can't you see that you might just be wrong on this issue?

 

[Pickman's model]

But that’s irrelevant to what I’m arguing, which is simply that support for the disabled should be targeted to the disabled, according to their specific needs, and offering what that nice Mr Elpenor calls “bribes” only to the elderly cohort which happens to include lots of people with some degree of disability is a strange way to go about things.

Einstein was right when he declared that the difference between genius and stupidity was that genius has its limits

 

[Silas Loom]

You didn't even know why older and/or disabled people might need more heating. Yet here you are basically telling us you know better than people who've built up years of research into poverty, disability and old age. Can't you see that you might just be wrong on this issue?

All I see is a bunch of bitter ideologues who are gutted that Starmer won when Corbyn didn’t, and who are pretending that the withdrawal of legacy bribes to well-off pensioners is an act of unutterable evil, and is Labour’s only policy response to the post-covid, post-Brexit economic mess, even though there’s an actual budget coming in six weeks which offers a far better opportunity to assess this government’s priorities in the round. That’s all pretty clear.

What I can’t begin to understand is why I am spending time interacting with them.

 

[Pickman's model]

All I see is a bunch of bitter ideologues who are gutted that Starmer won when Corbyn didn’t, and who are pretending that the withdrawal of legacy bribes to well-off pensioners is an act of unutterable evil, and is Labour’s only policy response to the post-covid, post-Brexit economic mess, even though there’s an actual budget coming in six weeks which offers a far better opportunity to assess this government’s priorities in the round. That’s all pretty clear.

What I can’t begin to understand is why I am spending time interacting with them.

The government's priorities are the priorities of business

 

[Smokeandsteam]

All I see is a bunch of bitter ideologues who are gutted that Starmer won when Corbyn didn’t, and who are pretending that the withdrawal of legacy bribes to well-off pensioners is an act of unutterable evil, and is Labour’s only policy response to the post-covid, post-Brexit economic mess, even though there’s an actual budget coming in six weeks which offers a far better opportunity to assess this government’s priorities in the round. That’s all pretty clear.

What I can’t begin to understand is why I am spending time interacting with them.

Yes, we will be discussing the budget on here too. Here’s a taster of what ‘the government’s priorities in the round’ are going to be:

Rachel Reeves planning to raise taxes and cut spending in October budget

Chancellor insists she still has large black hole to fill despite stronger than expected growth in first half of 2024

www.theguardian.com

 

[Dystopiary]

All I see is a bunch of bitter ideologues who are gutted that Starmer won when Corbyn didn’t, and who are pretending that the withdrawal of legacy bribes to well-off pensioners is an act of unutterable evil, and is Labour’s only policy response to the post-covid, post-Brexit economic mess, even though there’s an actual budget coming in six weeks which offers a far better opportunity to assess this government’s priorities in the round. That’s all pretty clear.

What I can’t begin to understand is why I am spending time interacting with them.

Plenty of us on this thread are anarchists who didn't exactly support Corbyn.

As for the budget, I'm dreading it.

 

[Dystopiary]

The government's priorities are the priorities of business

Exactly.

 

[The39thStep]

All I see is a bunch of bitter ideologues who are gutted that Starmer won when Corbyn didn’t, and who are pretending that the withdrawal of legacy bribes to well-off pensioners is an act of unutterable evil, and is Labour’s only policy response to the post-covid, post-Brexit economic mess, even though there’s an actual budget coming in six weeks which offers a far better opportunity to assess this government’s priorities in the round. That’s all pretty clear.

What I can’t begin to understand is why I am spending time interacting with them.

Have you thought of taking up a hobby?