Winter fuel payment

[fourbanks]

Just now, fourbanks said:

This is the message Keir should have sent out 

but fell well short 

She covers all the basics and more with a true belief. This is the type of mp we so desperately need in the UK to be able to go forward 

[Malc1]

44 minutes ago, fourbanks said:

She covers all the basics and more with a true belief. This is the type of mp we so desperately need in the UK to be able to go forward 

Well that’s never going to happen …….. we aren’t American and think, on the most part, very differently 

Nope, we’ve got what we have thru an honest election ……… many years of austerity ahead Starmer tells us and it’s all the fault of the previous Govt ……. Nothing to look forward to, he’s given us much gloom and doom and telling us we have to pay more to HMRC …….. AND especially OAPs must too, of course ……  And the draconian cancellation of the 

WINTER FUEL PAYMENT

is a necessity to help clear the Tory Govt £22bn Black Hole

……… nowt to do with the £9bn  in there from the new State paid salary increases the Labour Govt has just made ! 

You couldn’t make it up ….. well Starmer has, it must be true, it’s come from the lips of our PM ……. a former Attorney General ……. a great position of State and honesty and gravity …….

 

i despair ………my  trust in our politicians has now  just sunk to the lowest imaginable 

OAPs are being driven to the brink and many to a premature death this winter by this Labour Govt ……. death, blood  on Starmer’s hands for certain 

 

WINTER FUEL PAYMENT 

AGE UK. Petition now at 

459,079.  Signatures 

 

Malc 

[Phil xxkr]

2 hours ago, fourbanks said:

She covers all the basics and more with a true belief. This is the type of mp we so desperately need in the UK to be able to go forward 

For the avoidance of doubt ;

Harris, a radical from California, has a history of far-left policies:

Endorsed “some form of reparation

”Cosponsored legislation to protect illegal immigrants from deportation

Backed Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation

Backed banning private health insurance

Supported giving taxpayer-funded coverage to illegal immigrants

Supported banning fracking

Backed defunding the police

Compared ICE to the KKK

Wanted to ban plastic straws

Defended banning offshore drilling

Wanted to “undo” the Trump administration’s border security, taking 94 executive actions in the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris administration to rescind nealy every Trump-era measure

Supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings

Said she wouldn’t “treat” illegal aliens as “criminals”

Called for “starting [ICE] from scratch”

Argued that temporarily closing the border violated federal law

Raised money for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a far-left organization that pays to bail out of jail violent criminals, including accused murderers and rapists

Supported Los Angeles’s cuts to their police department

Called efforts to add more police to the streets “wrongheaded thinking”

Championed the administration’s so-called “Bidenomics” as costs dramatically soared for American families

Bragged about being a “leader” in the push to “get rid of the cash bail system in America.”

Attributed to Wendell Husebo who is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. 

Sure sounds like the person we need - Oh wait maybe we now have 😭

[Malc1]

USA politiks all toooooo complex for this simple soul, me, to understand ............... 😇

UK politics is more than enuf and I really haven't a clue as to why anybody would make politkal gain and rules from making sure some of our OAPs shiver and starve this coming winter ........... 

It's just TERRIBLE and SHAME ON THESE LABOUR PEOPLE, STARMER and REEVES for all this ......  potential death and harm at the hands and Will of this Labour Govt 

 

WINTER FUEL PAYMENT    

AGE  UK   Petition now at 

459,717   signatures

 

Malc

[fourbanks]

1 hour ago, Phil xxkr said:

For the avoidance of doubt ;

Harris, a radical from California, has a history of far-left policies:

Endorsed “some form of reparation

”Cosponsored legislation to protect illegal immigrants from deportation

Backed Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation

Backed banning private health insurance

Supported giving taxpayer-funded coverage to illegal immigrants

Supported banning fracking

Backed defunding the police

Compared ICE to the KKK

Wanted to ban plastic straws

Defended banning offshore drilling

Wanted to “undo” the Trump administration’s border security, taking 94 executive actions in the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris administration to rescind nealy every Trump-era measure

Supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings

Said she wouldn’t “treat” illegal aliens as “criminals”

Called for “starting [ICE] from scratch”

Argued that temporarily closing the border violated federal law

Raised money for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a far-left organization that pays to bail out of jail violent criminals, including accused murderers and rapists

Supported Los Angeles’s cuts to their police department

Called efforts to add more police to the streets “wrongheaded thinking”

Championed the administration’s so-called “Bidenomics” as costs dramatically soared for American families

Bragged about being a “leader” in the push to “get rid of the cash bail system in America.”

Attributed to Wendell Husebo who is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. 

Sure sounds like the person we need - Oh wait maybe we now have 😭

I can't quote the past, I'm just going on the present. You do have the right to change your mind over time if you find that the way forward is not working. This is where she finds herself today, with a mandate for not going back. Trumps views have never changed, so the USA folk need to be mindful of that, as it could be their downfall if elected. 

 

[Malc1]

AGE UK.  Petition 

WINTER FUEL PAYMENTS 
 

460,508.  Signatures this morning  👍👍👍

 

Malc 

[Brian R]

11 hours ago, Phil xxkr said:

For the avoidance of doubt ;

Harris, a radical from California, has a history of far-left policies:

Endorsed “some form of reparation

”Cosponsored legislation to protect illegal immigrants from deportation

..........

The woman is an absolute nightmare and god help USA if by some quirk, think Starmer, she gets voted in. A babbling incoherent idiot would best describe her!

[LenT]

10 minutes ago, Brian R said:

An incoherent babbling idiot would best describe her!

Well, having no influence as to its outcome, I haven’t been following the US political scene as closely as perhaps I should.  But I did by chance catch Harris’s most recent speech.

While I don’t find her voice particularly attractive, I certainly didn’t find her incoherent.  Rather than describe her comments as ‘babbling’ they struck me as rather generalised and sufficiently anodyne that it was hard to take exception to.

Whether or not she’s an idiot, I have no idea.  However, I have been convinced that Trump is a paranoid egotist who has demonstrated scant regard for the Law over many years, a misogynist who is going to find it extremely difficult to debate a woman who has a track record of dealing with crooks and an individual whose claims rarely stand up to close scrutiny and whose major defence is to mount ad hominem attacks on his critics.

Perhaps it is time that a woman was front of house at the White House?

[Boomer54]

1 minute ago, LenT said:

Well, having no influence as to its outcome, I haven’t been following the US political scene as closely as perhaps I should.  But I did by chance catch Harris’s most recent speech.

While I don’t find her voice particularly attractive, I certainly didn’t find her incoherent.  Rather than describe her comments as ‘babbling’ they struck me as rather generalised and sufficiently anodyne that it was hard to take exception to.

Whether or not she’s an idiot, I have no idea.  However, I have been convinced that Trump is a paranoid egotist who has demonstrated scant regard for the Law over many years, a misogynist who is going to find it extremely difficult to debate a woman who has a track record of dealing with crooks and an individual whose claims rarely stand up to close scrutiny and whose major defence is to mount ad hominem attacks on his critics.

Perhaps it is time that a woman was front of house at the White House?

Len, the US has our problem. The candidates on offer are an embarrassment to the 300 plus million population of that country. The voters have no good choice and we know how that feels.

[Kevin Williams]

[LenT]

9 minutes ago, Boomer54 said:

Len, the US has our problem. The candidates on offer are an embarrassment to the 300 plus million population of that country. The voters have no good choice and we know how that feels.

Nevertheless Stephen,  a choice is what they are going to have to make.  At least they’ve had some experience of a Trump administration where as - on the back of the second lowest recorded level of support - the UK has acquired a new Government which appears to have elevated ways to rapidly alienate voters to a record level!

The UK made its choice because those who voted thought it couldn’t get worse with a change of personnel in Government.  Well, apparently it can! 

What really astonishes me is that after months of preparation and laying out their stall, the first actions of the new Government is to take actions for which they would have lambasted the previous lot!

Starmer et al are discovering that it is always far easier to oppose the Government than to actually be it!

 

[Boomer54]

20 minutes ago, LenT said:

Nevertheless Stephen,  a choice is what they are going to have to make.  At least they’ve had some experience of a Trump administration where as - on the back of the second lowest recorded level of support - the UK has acquired a new Government which appears to have elevated ways to rapidly alienate voters to a record level!

The UK made its choice because those who voted thought it couldn’t get worse with a change of personnel in Government.  Well, apparently it can! 

What really astonishes me is that after months of preparation and laying out their stall, the first actions of the new Government is to take actions for which they would have lambasted the previous lot!

Starmer et al are discovering that it is always far easier to oppose the Government than to actually be it!

 

"is to take actions for which they would have lambasted the previous lot"...and indeed the nice link to the Spectator article spotlighted exactly that and further to that it highlighted how little outcry there had been from the usual suspects of Tory bashers !

If the current electoral system in the UK and probably US is consistently throwing up a choice based upon who you don't want rather than who you want then perhaps it is time to change the system. Clearly whatever Democracy is supposed to be we are kidding ourselves that we have it.

[Phil xxkr]

1 hour ago, Brian R said:

The woman is an absolute nightmare and god help USA if by some quirk, think Starmer, she gets voted in. A babbling incoherent idiot would best describe her!

At last a sane owners club member 🥳. I read that Two Tier Starmer has had removed Mrs T's picture from Downing Street. This has echoes of that other Marxist miscreant Barry Obama who removed Churchills bust from the Oval office! Which DJT promptly put back. 🥳🥳🥳

[Phil xxkr]

26 minutes ago, LenT said:

Nevertheless Stephen,  a choice is what they are going to have to make.  At least they’ve had some experience of a Trump administration where as - on the back of the second lowest recorded level of support - the UK has acquired a new Government which appears to have elevated ways to rapidly alienate voters to a record level!

The UK made its choice because those who voted thought it couldn’t get worse with a change of personnel in Government.  Well, apparently it can! 

What really astonishes me is that after months of preparation and laying out their stall, the first actions of the new Government is to take actions for which they would have lambasted the previous lot!

Starmer et al are discovering that it is always far easier to oppose the Government than to actually be it!

 

Bravo Len 😎

[Boomer54]

1 minute ago, Phil xxkr said:

At last a sane owners club member 🥳. I read that Two Tier Starmer has had removed Mrs T's picture from Downing Street. This has echoes of that other Marxist miscreant Barry Obama who removed Churchills bust from the Oval office! Which DJT promptly put back. 🥳🥳🥳

It's only been removed to his En Suite. It's well know he has constipation issues and being scared 's...less' with Maggie frowning down on him was thought to be a decent solution.

[Malc1]

Well we have always understood it was likely to be a crappp Govt …….. and Mrs T is, you say, now looking down on this big big dumpster 

Malc 

[Boomer54]

1 minute ago, Malc1 said:

Well we have always understood it was likely to be a crappp Govt …….. and Mrs T is, you say, now looking down on this big big dumpster 

Malc 

Indeed, even in the hereafter she wants people to take responsibility for their personal crap.

[First_Lexus]

I’m of the opinion that the only real difference between the parties is scrutiny. Outside of Government, there is little except for the most outrageous scandals. Once in Government things change. So, for all of those people who believed Labour would ‘clean up’ Government and restore it to ‘public service’ I’m afraid I have some bad news…there really isn’t much difference. There will inevitably be ‘bad apples’ in all walks of life, albeit within the Palace of Westminster the proportion seems to be rather high…

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-defends-himself-as-renters-champion-after-poor-conditions-found-in-his-properties-13206274

It will be interesting to see what Starmer decides to do about MPs such as this example. Very little would be my guess. Vive la difference?

Back to Winter Fuel payments and the article in Spectator magazine, I do feel that if Jeremy Hunt had implemented this policy there would have been protest marches organised by SWP across the country with wall to wall media coverage of pensioners in hovels wrapped in blankets. Other than the Newsnight interview and the online petition, to quote Bjork, “…it’s oh so quiet…shhh!”

Unfortunately national elections in the UK, USA, France, Greece, Germany etc. are increasingly a choice through gritted teeth of the ‘least worst option.’

Meanwhile, the US election choice and mood is summed up pretty well here.

https://news.sky.com/story/forgotten-rust-belt-town-embraces-donald-trump-despite-his-broken-promises-13206487

[Boomer54]

55 minutes ago, First_Lexus said:

I’m of the opinion that the only real difference between the parties is scrutiny. Outside of Government, there is little except for the most outrageous scandals. Once in Government things change. So, for all of those people who believed Labour would ‘clean up’ Government and restore it to ‘public service’ I’m afraid I have some bad news…there really isn’t much difference. There will inevitably be ‘bad apples’ in all walks of life, albeit within the Palace of Westminster the proportion seems to be rather high…

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-defends-himself-as-renters-champion-after-poor-conditions-found-in-his-properties-13206274

It will be interesting to see what Starmer decides to do about MPs such as this example. Very little would be my guess. Vive la difference?

Back to Winter Fuel payments and the article in Spectator magazine, I do feel that if Jeremy Hunt had implemented this policy there would have been protest marches organised by SWP across the country with wall to wall media coverage of pensioners in hovels wrapped in blankets. Other than the Newsnight interview and the online petition, to quote Bjork, “…it’s oh so quiet…shhh!”

Unfortunately national elections in the UK, USA, France, Greece, Germany etc. are increasingly a choice through gritted teeth of the ‘least worst option.’

Meanwhile, the US election choice and mood is summed up pretty well here.

https://news.sky.com/story/forgotten-rust-belt-town-embraces-donald-trump-despite-his-broken-promises-13206487

Depressing isn't it?

Milton Friedman said it best in my view. I quote;

"Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player."

 

[Malc1]

461,122   .............. have now signed the petition

 

AGE  UK  Petition

Malc

[First_Lexus]

9 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

461,122   .............. have now signed the petition

 

AGE  UK  Petition

Malc

Like him or loathe him, this is an interesting watch from Nick Ferrari’s programme yesterday.

From about 4m50s…if the pensioners who aren’t currently claiming DO claim (assuming they can answer the 243 questions) then this policy ends up costing the Government an additional £3.8bn rather than saving £1.4bn.

Ah, good old fiscal responsibility. Difficult decisions…or incompetent decisions?

 

[LenT]

2 hours ago, Boomer54 said:

and further to that it highlighted how little outcry there had been from the usual suspects of Tory bashers !

Indeed so Stephen.

It’s an immediate display of hypocrisy that may well go into Parliamentary folk lore alongside Liam Byrne’s notorious note to his successor at The Treasury!

2 hours ago, Boomer54 said:

Clearly whatever Democracy is supposed to be we are kidding ourselves that we have it.

Alternatively, it’s confirmation that we ARE a Democracy!  As Churchill quoted ‘Democracy is the worst form of Government - apart from all the others!’

We are governed by those who can be bothered to vote at an Election choosing those who can be bothered to stand for Election!

But at least it’s a choice and - to my mind - better than having only one ruling Party.  Or even no Party!

In fact I’ve never really understood the American system.  With our plethora of Parties - and even individuals - to vote for, it seems unlikely that the entire gamut of human opinion can be successfully represented by just two opposing factions.

That was the situation in Orwell’s ‘1984’ and that didn’t turn out too well!  Still, that was fiction - couldn’t possibly happen in real life?

 

[LenT]

In an effort to reconcile the original topic of a Winter Fuel Payment and the digression into American politics, does anyone know if American Pensioners can access similar social benefits?

My impression is that what are regarded as ‘handouts’ to the less fortunate of Americans is not universally regarded as a ‘good thing’.

[Boomer54]

33 minutes ago, LenT said:

Indeed so Stephen.

It’s an immediate display of hypocrisy that may well go into Parliamentary folk lore alongside Liam Byrne’s notorious note to his successor at The Treasury!

Alternatively, it’s confirmation that we ARE a Democracy!  As Churchill quoted ‘Democracy is the worst form of Government - apart from all the others!’

We are governed by those who can be bothered to vote at an Election choosing those who can be bothered to stand for Election!

But at least it’s a choice and - to my mind - better than having only one ruling Party.  Or even no Party!

In fact I’ve never really understood the American system.  With our plethora of Parties - and even individuals - to vote for, it seems unlikely that the entire gamut of human opinion can be successfully represented by just two opposing factions.

That was the situation in Orwell’s ‘1984’ and that didn’t turn out too well!  Still, that was fiction - couldn’t possibly happen in real life?

 

Colour me simple, but I can think of improvements to the current excuse for DEMOCRACY. Proportionate representation would be a start. A reduction in govt mandated policy replaced by digital referendums would be another. Neither requires much to be achieved except for politicians to be willing to accept that the Law of Large Numbers is both more democratic and is going to be more effective in making policy than they are. Spot the problem ? How do you get the guy holding the gate key to give it up when he in effect loses either part of his job ,or indeed his whole job when he does so.

[LenT]

53 minutes ago, First_Lexus said:

if the pensioners who aren’t currently claiming DO claim (assuming they can answer the 243 questions) then this policy ends up costing the Government an additional £3.8bn rather than saving £1.4bn.

As is often the case, Nick Ferrari has identified a piece of Civil Service nonsense with which to skewer a Minister.

Having had to deal with Civil Servants in Ministries, I often encountered this approach - namely, deliberately complicating a process in order to deter its application.

If Civil Servants have been party to deciding that Pensioners shouldn’t have Winter Fuel Payments, I doubt they’d make it easy to do so!  I once had to create an advertisement for a Ministry inviting anyone interested to contribute to the discussion about a piece of new Legislation.

I duly presented what I thought was a very creative and appealing solution to a rather dull subject.  It was immediately rejected on the grounds that it would attract too much attention. It was patiently explained to me that the Ministry had already spoken with anyone who actually mattered and they certainly didn’t want Members of the Public sticking their noses in.  

The ad was simply to comply with the legal requirement to appear to be inviting contributions.