Disgraceful of Labour to set out to make elderly people poorer - Andrew Vine
Volunteers even managed to rustle up basic hot meals for the many who did exactly that. Those kind-hearted people are already planning for this coming winter and talking to local businesses in the hope of finding sponsorship to provide more and better meals.
It will come as news to the volunteers, and the people who turned up muffled to the eyeballs in hats, overcoats, scarves and gloves that they are not, in fact, worried sick by heating bills but part of an affluent older population with plenty of money to spare.
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Hide AdThat appears to be the strange, misguided and borderline callous assumption on the part of the government.


If you’re older, you’ve got money. And you’re going to pay for having it.
So much can be concluded from the decision by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to axe the winter fuel allowance for pensioners unless they are on benefits.
But it is not only that. With a budget looming within weeks, and Ms Reeves gravely lecturing that the country is in a financial hole, taxes are inevitably going up.
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Hide AdAnd boxed in by promises not to hike income tax or national insurance, it’s going to be older people who get walloped, probably on inheritance tax and credits allowed on contributions to their pensions.
This is grossly unfair and displays a lack of candour bordering on the dishonest. Labour would not have the majority it enjoys if it had been straight with voters in the run-up to the election and told them that it views the older population as a cash cow to be milked.
It is also utterly wrong to believe that people in older generations, from, say, 60 upwards are rolling in money, with substantial savings and who laugh all the way to the bank at how much equity they have in their homes.
Pensioner poverty has been growing worse for years as the rising cost of living and flatlining interest rates on savings have eaten away at the financial security of people on fixed incomes with no means of earning anything to top them up.
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Hide AdHigher taxes on people saving for pensions to see them through a life after work can only make poverty worse in the long term, potentially leaving the state to pick up the bill.
And penalising people for passing on to children or grandchildren everything they have saved or worked for all their lives leaves a very nasty taste and points towards a basic misunderstanding of the natural instincts of every parent or grandparent.
For a Labour Party so assiduous about its PR during the journey from opposition to government, it has blundered spectacularly in axeing winter fuel payments, alienating 10m people who will lose £200 a year, or £300 if they are over 80.
The cut itself was a harmful and mean-spirited act. Last week’s announcement by Ofgem that energy bills are likely to rise by £150 a year in October made it even worse.
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Hide AdAt a stroke, older people already fretting over the cost of keeping warm in winter have been hit with a double whammy – higher bills and less money to pay them.
For this to happen as the government effectively rewarded striking train drivers who inflicted nearly two years of misery on the travelling public with a pay rise that gives them a basic wage approaching £70,000 a year adds insult to injury.
It’s a safe bet that the church close to where I live didn’t see any members of the drivers’ union Aslef huddling close to the radiators or being grateful for a plate of beans on toast in the weeks running up to last Christmas.
Insisting the poorest pensioners who are entitled to benefits will still receive winter fuel payments is no answer to the widespread worry the cut will cause.
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Hide AdAs charities including Age UK and the National Pensioners Convention have pointed out, there are substantial numbers of older people whose finances are marginally above the level at which they can claim benefits, but who are by no means affluent.
They will be the people making choices between switching the heating on or cooking a meal this winter, more of them than last year.
No, pensioners are not sitting on pots of money, especially here in the north where wages have been historically lower than in the wealthiest parts of the country.
Instead, the reality is one with which most of us are very familiar from our families or circle of friends – older people with a modest occupational pension in addition to what they receive from the state who are barely managing and watch every penny they spend.
For Labour to set out to make them poorer in their later years is not only wrong, it is disgraceful.
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