Universal Benefits?

You don't get something for nothing and this is never more true than the promise of a pension across the board worth £144 per week.

The first hangup is that by the time it is actual fact £144 will probably be worth £90 per week if that. You don't get something for nothing! Governments of any colour have used this ruse so many times, except perhaps the one voted in in 1945.  They really did try to put into effect promises they made on time.

Secondly what does “Universal Benefits” mean.  The fact is this is probably a clever way of demolishing many existing benefits to save the Exchequer a few billion here and there. Anyone with a ha'p'orth of sense knows that doing away with certain benefits means just that.  They will not be replaced by generous replacements.

So many will find themselves without help when and where it is most needed. If you don't qualify for certain welfare reforms then it will probably be goodbye to assistance you have relied upon for years.

No Government now, particularly in this time of austerity, is going to throw money around ad lib. So cutting out many benefits and replacing them with a universal benefit is a massive con. You don't get something for nothing. The idea put forth is that it will save time and money to coordinate the benefit system into one efficient whole. It will indeed save lots of administrative fees but lets not kid ourselves, saving working costs is the publicity gimmick; what it will really do and this is the real intent, is cut out many benefits to the disabled, those in need of social care and the unemployed and wait for it, pensioners.

Of course, Tax Credits have been a sleazy way of not raising the pension and kidding the hard up pensioners that they are in effect getting a rise. Of course they weren't, aren't and never will. All that was required was a decent rise in the State Pension; cheaper to administer and ethical but if one can shut up a few by claiming that those on low pensions can claim Tax Credits, its much cheaper in the long run than doing the decent thing and making sure the elderly get what they were promised all their working lives.

So £144 it is and by 2014, you can bet your bottom dollar (if you can afford it) that this magnificent £144 won't be worth £90.

The trouble is many decent honest folk are being taken in by this. This clever ploy has shut up the strident voices calling for a rise and obviates the necessity to keep up the argument.

This is a massive con trick and the Government know it and so would a Labour Government. The fact is the elderly, thanks to sly innuendo, are now regarded as an unworthy burden on society so there won't be a lot fighting our corner.

One can observe similar attitudes relating to our ex-service men. Those with deep and shocking injuries are now having to prove to a commercial company that they are unable to get or find work.

This unscrupulous attitude extends to the civil sector also. The Independent of 25th March 2013 reports of:

an amputee who cannot walk, struggles to talk and is brain damaged has been passed “fit for work” and had his benefits cut under government reforms. His incapacity benefits were cut by £440 a month and [he] has been left with £220 to pay his monthly rent, bills and food. The 50-year-old had received incapacity benefits, now known as employment and support allowances since 1993 when he had a brain tumour. He also had his left leg amputated below the knee in 2004 after contracting deep vein thrombosis.

Notice the change of description of benefit and what is worse, all this was monitored by ATOS, the firm the Government has used to monitor and control benefits.

You didn't vote for ATOS, neither did you vote for Group 4 another Government appointed agency but there they are having a huge influence on our lives concerning matters of need and handicap. These firms are probably “jobs for the boys”- nice little earners. What is even worse than these schemes and plots, for this is what they are, is that they insult our intelligence and that is really unforgivable.

Joan Grant

More financial attacks to come on pensioners?

The 'Fabian' attack in the Daily Express

THE FABIANS "STRIP OAPS of benefits" According to a report in the Daily Express on the 22nd April 2013 and further comments in the Independent of today (23.4.013) Better Off Pensioners could be taxed and/or means tested on benefits such as Bus Passes and Fuel Allowance and so save the Government millions, the so-called Think Tank of the Fabian Society suggests.

We suggest that there wasn't much thought given to this dangerous idea. Who decides who the "Better Off Pensioners" are and where should the line between the better off and poorer pensioners be drawn?

The Independent following the debate today uses phrases like those on Tax Credits would be deemed the poorer section. Well the Writer does not qualify for Tax Credit or any other supplement to her pension, yet remains struggling to meet fuel bills and Council Tax.

A prime example of misguided designated line is that of the PDSA who will not treat animals belonging to pensioners who do not receive Housing or Council Tax Benefit. There are many people existing just above these mistakenly placed demarcation lines but who are certainly not better off. Someone receiving just over £10,000 per annum cannot be classed as "Better Off" but this silly idea will attack them just the same.

The State Pension in Britain is the lowest in Europe so these "perks" are much needed by the majority of pensioners, most of whom are certainly not "Better Off". The Fabian "Think Tank" had better think again.

FUEL ALLOWANCE AND OTHER BENEFITS

It is getting a little tiresome to hear from so-called experts on fiscal studies, of their focus on the elderly and their current benefits. It is so unfair that by these public comments they draw the attention of the remainder of the public to those of us unable to work nor even contribute to the large deficit allegedly inherited by the current Government.
Among other spotlights being brought to bear on the pensioners' so-called benefits are the Freedom Pass enjoyed by London Pensioners, Free Bus Travel by other Pensioners across the country, Free Prescriptions, the Free Television Licence and the Winter Fuel Allowance.
It is quite iniquitous that cuts should be aimed at a class of people unable to hit back either financially or through strikes and marches.
The most callous suggestion is that the Winter Fuel Allowance should come into the category of benefits not really needful, an attitude which has been exacerbated by celebrities and other public figures noisily giving away their allowance in a 'noble' gesture to the country because they say they are not really in need of this allowance. This noisy gesture has put in jeopardy this payment which has been given open handedly with no strings or means testing. Instead of making a grandiose show of their altruism, would it not be better for these noble folk to hand their allowance to Age Concern or Age UK quietly without fuss.
Since the Government may consider that one way of economising would be for the Winter Fuel Payment to be means tested or only given to those applying, would it not be a good idea that from the 1st October to the 31st March all central heating in the House of Commons, the House of Lords (which does have an elderly section of the public by virtue of that House's Members' age), all Council Chambers and all Civil Servant Offices, be turned off.
This would surely make a good saving, set a fine example of public responsibility and provide the sitters with a better perception of what it is like to be really cold and unable to do anything about it usually because of enforced immobility either through health or age. Try being old and cold. There's nothing like experience for greater understanding.
Our fiscal experts should remember that this generation of pensioners have put more into the National Pot than any other section of society because having lived longer, their contributions were greater. One of the betrayals was that having been promised a pension which would be linked to wages or prices, whichever was the higher, a previous Conservative Government under Mrs. Thatcher, broke this promise of a link and the following Labour Government were even more treacherous by not reversing the actions of that previous Tory Government. Pensioners have been let down by both parties and talk of taking away or means testing a heating allowance, is no less a betrayal than the breaking of the Link. It is pernicious to suggest that in these hard times the Pensioners have not had inroads made to their quality of life as others have. That so-called quality is already under attack by rising food prices, heavier utility bills and telephone costs. It is now costly to ring Telephone Directories even before one makes a call.
Leave what little we get alone.