Andrew Neil and Corben interview.

[Westward]

39 minutes ago, henry d said:

So have the SNP

The sooner the Scotland stops sucking at the Westminster teat the better as far as I'm concerned. Independence for Scotland? Bring it on!

Edited November 27, 2019 by Westward

[Scully]

21 minutes ago, Westward said:

The sooner the Scotland stops sucking at the Westminster teat the better as far as I'm concerned. Independence for Scotland? Bring it on!

And Wales.....and the UK! 😀

[Mice!]

This popped up this week,  seems the right place for it.

5 hours ago, Gordon R said:

I laughed at first, but actually started to feel sorry for Corbyn. Not very bright and struggled to answer any question. Kept repeating the same phrases - which had little or nothing to do with the question he had been asked. He appears to be as thick as Diane Abbott or getting old very quickly.

Totally and utterly out of his depth.

I'm not sure any politician ever answers the question they are asked. 

[harkom]

3 hours ago, The Mighty Prawn said:

My bug bear is being asked a direct question and then they launch into "Our position on this has always been the same" etc etc but without actually stating what that position is! There should be a dunk tank and if they don't answer within 30 seconds they get dunked

Personally, I would prefer that they were given the "waterboard" treatment , rather than a quick dunk.

[Deker]

4 hours ago, del.gue said:

Yet there is still a possibility he will be PM.

If this country puts him in office then we deserve everything we get. Need to look at options to get the hell out of dodge...

 

If he gets in my plan is to jack in work and get a student visa for USA and do a masters for a year (or two with STEM)

[Perazzishot]

5 hours ago, henry d said:

So have the SNP

you're are thinking of Salmond with a condom up his sleeve..........

[Penelope]

8 hours ago, Perazzishot said:

you're are thinking of Salmond with a condom up his sleeve..........

Looks like he never bothered with such niceties.

[derbyduck]

23 hours ago, Mice! said:

Hope it's as good as Nicola sturgeons interview with him.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jackgiendinning/status/1199056353161043969?s=12

45 seconds to ruin her.

brilliant !

[grrclark]

15 hours ago, Westward said:

Corbyn has an ace up his sleeve, specifically the WASPI vote. Lord knows how many millions of women will vote Labour because he's promising an average of £15,000 each to compensate them for having their pensions "stolen" by the conservatives who raised the retirement age for women, meaning they couldn't retire at 60. Ker-ching... Estimated to be another £38 billion to be paid for by the "High Earners".  Are they also going to refund men like me who built up well over 44 qualifying years plus SERPS only to watch the last bunch of Labour loonies reduce the threshold to 30 years? I don't think so.

Bonkers is too mild a word for that bunch of crackpots. If they get elected (heaven forbid) it really will be the lunatics running the asylum. What the Labour clowns never grasp is that stunt giveaways like family tax credits only work to get them elected once, but the taxpayer has has to keep on forking it over for evermore.

Thought it worth highlighting that the increase in pension age for women was made by the Labour government under Tony Blair.

[JDog]

29 minutes ago, grrclark said:

Thought it worth highlighting that the increase in pension age for women was made by the Labour government under Tony Blair.

A pertinent fact conveniently glossed over by Corbyn and The SNP.

[Dibble]

does Nicola Stuergeon always blink that much?

[TIGHTCHOKE]

13 minutes ago, Dibble said:

does Nicola Stuergeon always blink that much?

Only when she is talking out of her bottom!

[Westward]

2 hours ago, grrclark said:

Thought it worth highlighting that the increase in pension age for women was made by the Labour government under Tony Blair.

The WASPI bunch have had many years to prepare for later retirement even though they like to create the impression that it was suddenly sprung it on them. But of course, Corbyn and the Loonies want everyone to think that's what happened. My argument for a refund of 14 years additional NI that I didn't need to pay seems stronger.

[panoma1]

When the WASPI women started work, the contract was they pay the required amount of national insurance to the government, and the government agreed to pay them their pension when they reached 60 years of age! The women fulfilled their part of the contract...the government didn’t!

I suggest you look into this issue a bit deeper, particularly the notice the government were required to give.........not for the initial raise in pensionable age, but for the further raises in pensionable age the government imposed?

Edited November 28, 2019 by panoma1

[Mice!]

1 hour ago, Dibble said:

does Nicola Stuergeon always blink that much?

Rabbit in the headlights 

[grrclark]

1 hour ago, Westward said:

The WASPI bunch have had many years to prepare for later retirement even though they like to create the impression that it was suddenly sprung it on them. But of course, Corbyn and the Loonies want everyone to think that's what happened. My argument for a refund of 14 years additional NI that I didn't need to pay seems stronger.

 

31 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

When the WASPI women started work, the contract was they pay the required amount of national insurance to the government, and the government agreed to pay them their pension when they reached 60 years of age! The women fulfilled their part of the contract...the government didn’t!

I suggest you look into this issue a bit deeper, particularly the notice the government were required to give.........not for the initial raise in pensionable age, but for the further raises in pensionable age the government imposed?

I have sympathy for both sides of the argument, where I understand that some will want to take a polarised stance and why they are taking that, i don't think that you can as it isn't really a binary issue.

Society and the economy continually evolves and where the initial agreement/contract/bargain (if those are the right words)with the WASPI women was given and received in good faith by both sides, that is not to say that bargain can continue to hold in every circumstance.  It is the same with private pensions through company funds that there was a bargain with those entering the scheme that it would pay X amount, but that is unsustainable as people live longer so the drawdown is greater, etc and funds have collapsed and people have lost out.

It is an imperfect science.  We can argue that it shouldn't be and that state pensions should have been managed differently to be able to stand by obligations and commitments, but what might that have meant elsewhere?

When the WASPI women started work and the bargain was struck life expectancy was shorter, in that time there has been huge progress in medical science to see more folk living longer in old age, impacting on a greater drawdown of the overall state pension pot.  That is also a contract between state and individual where the state is affording the best healthcare it can.  So we have benefitted from an improvement in the bargain on the health front, our national health is better as a result of government policy and investment into the health service and education, we live longer and generally healthier, but we have lost out on the pension front.

Likewise with educational attainment for women. In that same period of the WASPI women's working lifetime, there are way more women going into further education and with far better employment prospects that at the outset of their career when first striking that state bargain, so a benefit on that front.

However, there is clearly a group of women within a given age range who have been disadvantaged in terms of the bargain struck and I completely understand their anger and frustration.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Stop being so damned sensible!

[grrclark]

11 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Stop being so damned sensible!

It's only my public persona Dave 😎

[TIGHTCHOKE]

1 minute ago, grrclark said:

It's only my public persona Dave 😎

[Dibble]

So the WASPI women are saying they wish to stop being contributing members of the workforce as soon as possible. I wish to be active economically as long as possible, it's not what you can take out of the system it's what you put in.

[Good shot?]

Did this women's pension age thing not come about due to women wanting equal rights etc and it backfired on them regarding men had a 65 year pension age and women had 60.

So their pension age was upped to 65 like men in consequence.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Good shot?

[oowee]

5 minutes ago, Good shot? said:

Did this women's pension age thing not come about due to women wanting equal rights etc and it backfired on them regarding men had a 65 year pension age and women had 60.

So their pension age was upped to 65 like men in consequence.

Not quite far enough in my view. Given they live so much longer than men on average why are they not made to wait longer than men? Seems to me the Government at some point need to make a calculation for pension payments based on longevity set against the tax take from the rest of the population. Something like assuming average life expectancy at 20 years post retirement for men and women. Why the government feels it does not have to make provisions to ensure funding income for pensions unlike the rest of us and our employers is beyond me. 

Is Boris still running scared of an interview with Andrew Neil? Seems odd to think he has less balls than Sturgeon and Corbyn. 

[panoma1]

1 hour ago, grrclark said:

 

I have sympathy for both sides of the argument, where I understand that some will want to take a polarised stance and why they are taking that, i don't think that you can as it isn't really a binary issue.

Society and the economy continually evolves and where the initial agreement/contract/bargain (if those are the right words)with the WASPI women was given and received in good faith by both sides, that is not to say that bargain can continue to hold in every circumstance.  It is the same with private pensions through company funds that there was a bargain with those entering the scheme that it would pay X amount, but that is unsustainable as people live longer so the drawdown is greater, etc and funds have collapsed and people have lost out.

It is an imperfect science.  We can argue that it shouldn't be and that state pensions should have been managed differently to be able to stand by obligations and commitments, but what might that have meant elsewhere?

When the WASPI women started work and the bargain was struck life expectancy was shorter, in that time there has been huge progress in medical science to see more folk living longer in old age, impacting on a greater drawdown of the overall state pension pot.  That is also a contract between state and individual where the state is affording the best healthcare it can.  So we have benefitted from an improvement in the bargain on the health front, our national health is better as a result of government policy and investment into the health service and education, we live longer and generally healthier, but we have lost out on the pension front.

Likewise with educational attainment for women. In that same period of the WASPI women's working lifetime, there are way more women going into further education and with far better employment prospects that at the outset of their career when first striking that state bargain, so a benefit on that front.

However, there is clearly a group of women within a given age range who have been disadvantaged in terms of the bargain struck and I completely understand their anger and frustration.

As I understand it (and I don’t claim to be an expert) a contract (verbal or otherwise) can be terminated either by mutual consent or one party giving proper notice and compensating with the other party? The government, it is claimed gave insufficient to notice, and neither offered, payed nor negotiated any compensation.

There was no mention of possible changes to the contract (other than that the required contribution rate was variable) when it was first implemented, there was no clause which allowed the pensionable age to be arbitrarily increased!
Private financial arrangements are different, they usually state the rates are variable, and the final amount can go up or down subject to the financial situation at the time! Which is fair enough if it was made plain at the outset!
That life expectancy has increased is irrelevant, the fact, it seems that the government didn’t set the rate of contribution to take this into account is nobody’s fault but the governments.....certainly pensioners shouldn’t be disadvantaged because the government failed to predict and account for many not conveniently dying........before they attained the agreed pensionable age!

I believe the government has a moral (and legal) duty to compensate the WASPI women for the imposed change of contract! Though I believe the court has found against them! However I understand, there may be an appeal in the offing?

[Dibble]

My retirement age has been raised to 67 should I bring a court case because they didn't inform me in 1986 when I was 16? I undoubtedly will be working longer for less reward as well.

If you compensate everyone for every loss they might suffer for a change in policy it's pointless ever changing policy, my parents are both on "government" pensions and retired at 55 policies like that are obviously unsustainable.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Just now, Dibble said:

My retirement age has been raised to 67 should I bring a court case because they didn't inform me in 1986 when I was 16? I undoubtedly will be working longer for less reward as well.

If you compensate everyone for every loss they might suffer for a change in policy it's pointless ever changing policy, my parents are both on "government" pensions and retired at 55 policies like that are obviously unsustainable.

Join the queue!