Somewhat to my surprise, there's to be a pre-Party Conference set-piece in Parliament - tomorrow - on the winter fuel allowance thing. The Deputy Speaker who allowed it obviously has a sense of humour - the Speaker's office evidently didn't enjoy being bamboozled and bullied last year over the Gaza vote, eh?
And with Kier 'Bang'em Up' Starmer digging in at the weekend, and a hapless[1] junior minister being disowned by No.10 this morning, it's looking set to be another virility test.
Of course, there are loads of simple ways Starmer/Reeves could sugar the pill a bit, but everything seems set fair for an outright 3-line whip / loyalty test on the blunt and brutal means-testing they've announced[2]. The most they've done so far is very pointedly to re-confirm the triple lock on pensions: but as everyone has chorused - so what? OK, he's read his Machiavelli about getting your nastiness in early: but is Starmer really sure he's pursuing clever politics here? There are also loads of ways of cracking the whip in an ostentatious and salutary manner: summary deselection of Mr 'Renters Champion' Athwal would be a start. But a massive falling-out over an emotive social policy so very easily weaponised by everyone else, just ahead of Party Conference, for just £1.4 bn?
It's not quite the same, but one is reminded of the wonderful line in Bolt's A Man For All Seasons:
"It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales?"
Break open the popcorn - again.
ND
_____________
[1] ... and I do know what 'hapless' means, unlike 95% of Guardian writers (And 'elide', ditto ditto.)
[2] Can't find it just now, but some bright researcher has found a clip of Reeves advocating means-testing for the WFA about 6 years ago. So much for "we didn't want to do this" - she's always wanted to do it!
27 comments:
If I was willing to fritter away a chunk of cash, I confess I'd enjoy trying to push a holdmykier hashtag via some targeted online and billboard advertising.
A picture of Harold Shipman with the text "Britains #1 Granny Killer", side by side with a picture of Starmer and the text "Hold my beer!", with a big #holdmykier underneath.
Then let the idle hands of Social Media do my work.
Although sure I, or someone else, had a similar idea not too log back over something else.
Always the problem with a decent-but-imperfect memory, it sometimes resurrects concepts and you're never sure if you were the originator, or just consumed it.
As for Athwal, as a landlord, albeit on a much smaller scale than him, I'd like to know more before feet get held before fire.
I had an instance where damp proofing had failed at a property, something I would discover later, the property managers were telling me it was a minor damp issue down to a water leak and windows being closed too often.
In an object lesson in "trust but verify", I visited the house after the tenant had left and saw that the whole place was riddled with damp, and it was a lot more than a leak, closed windows, and a job for a dehumidifier, and was mortified I'd had a tenant living in those conditions. Having been a renter once, I try to make a point of not being a Hoogstraten.
Needless to say I have a new management provider who give me photographic evidence of any tenant problems.
So, my own experience gives him a sliver of doubt, although I'm quite sure it'll prove to be unearned.
Commendably open-minded of you, CH, but the Beeb additionally says the Renters' Champion also claimed he was properly registered as a landlord with the LA (of which he is a leading member) when he wasn't. Eventually, the body of circumstantial evidence starts to add up
this is against the backdrop of a "whiter than white" standard for integrity in public office
(if we may be allowed that phrase)
I want to know whether anyone will raise this under-publicised fact (courtesy of Pension Age):
“those on pension credit will be wrestling with the fact they won’t be receiving a cost-of-living payment this November. Last year they had a £300 payment to help take some of the pain out of winter energy bills, so losing this will take a toll.”
Just to be clear, I resent paying any tax but among the taxes I resent least are the ones that stop auld biddies freezing.
For pensioners - and I'm one - a bigger worry is the possibility of losing the single resident discount of 25% off Council Tax. Losing Winter Fuel Allowance is £300, but my single resident discount is £500. Then CT will probably go up by at least 5%, so I'm looking at a hit of £900 out of state and a small private pension. That's significant for me. I'm not entitled to any help because I have too much in the way of savings.
Cheers Yet Another Chris
About Ms Reeves' foresight: the Guardian reported in 2016:
'Reeves ... told a fringe meeting: “There are bubbling tensions in this country that I just think could explode.” She said there had already been three racist incidents since the referendum and she feared there could be more cases if the public’s concerns are not addressed.'
Maybe she was surprised that nothing happened until the Southport murders.
@ND with the LA, again depends - I paid the council a couple of years back to be registered.
After a bit of fun with a dysfunctional payment portal (Capita, ofc), funds were taken to validate the property. This was then meant to be followed by someone to visit the property, no doubt wielding a clipboard like it was Excalibur, and another payment if they were happy.
Since then, silence. Part of me thinks I should chase it up, but another part of me has worked with councils enough to know that comes with its own risks.
So I remain a Schrödinger’s Landlord until they contact me.
I don't for the life of me think he's squeaky clean, but my own experience and knowing the value of a vested disinterest in council competence, means he gets a little more flex from me than usual.
The fun will be if the threats to tenants originate from him. He can cool his heels in a cell at that point.
Poor old Starmer - scratching round the bottom of the petty cashbox in case a farthing has gone unnoticed.
Back in the day when I was in that sort of boat, the cure was to get a better job. But GB plc does not have much hope of a better job. A bit more robbing Peter to pay Paul is the only game.
My local cohort of pensioners is not short of a bob or two but I am looking around to make a few economies because the WFA is not the least of the modern pensioner's problems. Not short yet but can see trouble on the horizon.
Inflation continues, Council Tax will certainly go up - and up, leccy & gas too. Then I am getting a bit doddery to climb up and fix the gutters - paying a roofer gives an education the Treasury could well take on board. If this goes on we will all be bl*&dy miserable before 2029.
Which may be where Starmer is hoping to be semi-clever. By clearing the ground now he may hope for a bit of leeway coming up to 2029. So cheer up all, things might look better come 2028.
More cheer comes from the 30 year prospect of picking over the taxable carcasses of the boomer generation. Most of us will be dead by then and all those lovely houses will have been passed on (with swingeing taxes). To say nothing of all that pension and annuity money freed up.
Which will be needed when all those underfunded DC pensioners cash in their pittance and all those arthritic Uber and Deliveroo drivers drag their cardboard boxes and tents along to the Council Offices.
Last comment was me.
One wonders if the WFA abolition is proof that the Left have lost their marbles and have started believing their own propaganda. In Lefty meme world, pensioners are the wealthy, the rentiers, the Boomers, the Gammons, the Kulaks ripe for the picking. So hey, lets take away their WFA, they don't need it, the bourgeois bastards! Forgetting (or just being utterly unaware) that in reality there are millions of pensioners who have the old age pension and not much else to live on. Not poor enough to get benefits, not wealthy enough to be comfortable. Kicking away the WFA from those millions of 'just about managing' pensioners is not going to be popular, right across the political spectrum. A gross miscalculation of such a degree suggests a real disconnect from reality. Political rhetoric in opposition is one thing, if you start thinking its real when in government you are in trouble.
Starmer : 30/04/2024
"My Labour Party will always be on the side of those pensioners let down by the Tories..."
03/02/2013
"Too many Twitter prosecutions could damage free speech, says DPP"
What we have here, is a pathological liar. With a severe personality deficit. Even makes Brown look OK.
More useful to remove all the green levies and 'add ons' from the fuel bills than tinkering with the subsidies. Then everyone could benefit.
M.
The more this goes on the more I am struck by the fact that Starmer and Johnson are mirror images of each other. They both wasted political capital on totally avoidable fiascos. I wonder how long Starmer will last until he runs out of road? A cold winter, Miliband wrecking the power supply and few early release prisoners causing trouble and I think he will be in real trouble.
Charles
Oh bloody hell. My posts are disappearing again
If this stays, it's delicious.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TnZEimRSaA8
Will much actually stick to Starmer though? Or will it stick to his Ministers?
Compared to other PMs in memory, he's virtually invisible, his personal theme is Visage's Fade to Grey. Put his Ministers in front of him, and he fades from view, like a Predator, only more boring.
John Major's Spitting Image puppet was vivid technicolour in comparison.
His ratings may plummet, but I suspect it'll be the Raynors and the Reeves who'll face the ire of the public.
Heating is so expensive because of that ass Ed Miliband, he of "Two kitchens" fame. But in The Times of years past I have just found 'It was suggested yesterday that the property may include a third kitchen, described as “hot drink preparation area”, for the live-in nanny'.
On reflection I am struck by "the live-in nanny". Is the adjective to distinguish her from the other nanny who relieves her on her days off?
"Caeser Hēméra has left a new comment on the post 'Starmer & winter fuel: break open more popcorn':
Will much actually stick to Starmer though? Or will it stick to his Ministers?"
In his time as head of DPP, everything that went wrong (and there was a lot, never mind Saville & Warboys), Starmer said was being dealt with by someone else.
Clearly, the buck never got to the head of the department.
That YouTube short is funny
Did anyone have the gumption to ask Two Tier whether he got free heating at both No.10 and Chequers?
Here comes The March !!! Farage already has his "Save the Winter Fuel Allowance" banner.
Celebrities at the front - let the Met do their worst.
But really - this is about pension apartheid.
Surely public sector pensions must now be in the firing line too. Are we all in this together or not ?
How can we have a whole class of people slaving away to pay for pensions that they cannot possibly afford for themselves ?
Letting prisoners go early is not really about letting prisoners go early. It's about the message it sends to potential criminals which is "You won't go to prison !" and what that means. Labour: cure the prison crisis by abolishing prison as a measure, cure the boats crisis by legalising illegal (now irregular) immigration. The next will be to legalise drugs and on.
Scary times. I've just ordered myself a K-Bar ... for opening tin cans of course.
A Peter Hitchens has noted, thanks to my generation, those we once saw as criminals who may well need locking up, are now "victims of society" who must be treated with kid gloves. Stats show that a huge majority of those released will re-offend. Care in the community was always a dodgy concept for those with mental problems; for crims, it will be a disaster.
Meanwhile...
Chancellor and Labour MPs used over £400,000 of taxpayer cash to heat their homes
"Chancellor and Labour MPs used over £400,000 of taxpayer cash to heat their homes"
Given the utter mess Starmer and co. have made of their first two months, God knows what state we'll be in when they are kicked out.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/rachel-reeves-claim-thousands-energy-support-winter-fuel/
Better hunker down for the next five years. They will do what they want until the next election. For my part, I'm off to somewhere warm and cheap over winter.
Portugal is nice and property is cheap.
With the prisoner release, that is one they can pretty much blame the Tories for. They were even planning similar.
The new Tory leader is going to be gifted a lot of opportunities by Labour, but they're still going to have to put in some effort to convince anyone with memories longer than 5 years, that they're worth more than a begrudged vote.
Next few election cycles might just be Get The Current Useless Git Out until one party, probably more through luck, manages to find enough competent people to provide us something other than a depressing shitshow.
First VW, now Fiat
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/12/production-of-electric-fiat-500-halted-lack-of-european-orders-stellantis
Stellantis is to halt production of the electric Fiat 500 model for four weeks because of a lack of orders in Europe. The Franco-Italian company, which also owns the Citroën, Vauxhall and Peugeot brands, said production would be suspended from Friday.
We've spent a week in Madeira in January a few times. Brill! Maybe you'd go stir crazy if you spent a whole winter there - it's rather a small island - or maybe you'd think Brill!
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