Pensions and the great Tory Rip Off
My column published in Scottish Sun on Sunday 23rd March 2014
Pop open the Champagne, get the Caviaar out, the good times are here. The ConDems were celebrating that anyone can now save up £15,000 a year in ISAs ‘tax free’ and Pensioners with savings of their own will be able to dip into them with no need to worry about being taxed.
Meanwhile on Planet Earth the vast majority of pensioners are worrying about making choices between freezing to death or starving to death, rather than whether they can tap into savings and fly off to Bahamas.
As for giving everyone given the right to save up to £15,000 a year tax free whether you are rich or poor, how democratic, but most people I know are worried about whether they could save a fiver a week never mind £1250 a month.
This week’s Budget is nothing more than a bag of con tricks played out on the poor by a sick and patronising Government.
Why even the Pensions Minister Stephen Webb dared to boast that- ‘pensioners should be able to go out and buy a Lamborghini if they want to! ‘
Despite our having one of the lowest state pensions in Western Europe, they will be non-existent in 30 years if Westminster has its way.
The link between state pensions and average state earnings scrapped by Thatcher in 1980, has robbed pensioners of what they worked their whole lives for- hope, comfort and security in their old age.
It is estimated that by 2050 the value of the basic state pension will be worth in today’s terms, £31 a week, could you imagine trying to live on that?
The’ con trick’ is simple one, keep raising the retirement age, whilst lowering pensions to such a level that the elderly will be begging for the right to work.
They know that the poorer you are, the shorter your life expectancy- work them longer and many will never get around to claiming a pension. Cynical ‘euthanasia’ by a Government now used to having blood of the poor on its hands.
This isn’t about the politics of envy, pensioners have lost billions, as inflation busting utility and food bills have outstripped the annual piddling increases in state pension.
An estimated 2.5 million pensioners now living in poverty are condemned to a life of isolation, unable to afford even the most basic necessities.
I am sick of hearing the words ‘we can’t afford it’ whilst the Tories actually believe that ‘Plebs’ will be popping open the champagne because they got thrown some peanuts with a cut Bingo Duty to 10% and took 1p of Beer duty.
Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps even tweeted an advert hoping to woo working class voters ‘Bingo – Cutting The Bingo Tax and Beer Duty –To Help Hardworking People Do More Of The Things They Enjoy’
This patronising Toff should be dragged to a housing scheme in Glasgow, forced to live on benefits or a state pension for a month. In fact such compulsory Workfare should be mandatory for each and every MP before they dare pass judgement on anything.
Millband the spineless lead balloon, masquerading as an opposition leader refused to reverse the budget’s welfare cuts, despite Lamont promising Socialism North of the border her boss clearly has other plans in store for us.
Looking at the Tory advert though, I wonder whether it was simply the case that a PR genius had been reading George Orwell’s ‘1984’ and stolen his ideas.
Written over 70 years ago Orwell described a Big Brother society which kept control of the ‘proletariat’ working class- “Beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult”.
I think come September 18th it is time to get rid of and vote Yes.