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Costa del Berwick-upon-Tweed


Grecian

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Well it is official now, in Berwick-upon-Tweed and the whole of the UK, except for Scotland according to the tories the temperature does not drop sufficiently to put any form of heating on in the winter. Whilst pensioners in Berwick are out basking in the winter sun with their swimwear on, just two and a half miles up the road in Scotland, the poor Scots are absolutely freezing, wearing several layers of clothing, and turning on their heating full blast, sitting back smugly knowing that the rest of the UK, or at least England and Wales are subsidising their heating bills to the tune of £300 a year!

Yet another example of the tories well tested 'divide and conquer' routine that they use over and over again. When questioned today Damien Green would not confirm ordinary pensioners, i.e. not the stinking rich, will not have their winter fuel allowance taken away from them, you will have to trust the tories after the election, ha ha. Throw in that they are proposing a dementia tax and I think that May has well and truly shot herself in the foot, one can only hope.

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Jeremy Hunt (what a super name for a political anti-chant - Hunt, Hunt you're a scally-wag? no that does not rhyme) let slip that the aim was to save 20bn. So divide by £200 (yes I know some get £300 but also some only get £100) that leaves 10 million pensioners plus or minus apparently too rich to need the WFA. I guess that is all of them except those already on benefits as a result of their poverty levels.

Full marks to the SNP and the Tory leader in Scotland for saying "not here."

The UK pensions situation is a total mess. Yes some are very well off, but many are not, and those coming behind us in the next generations are unlikely to be.

I worked and paid (or was granted for a very few years) National Insurance contributions for 29 years. I also latterly paid 9 years into the German state pension system - which is an insurance system Not strictly comparable. but I am going to anyway.

We are always told to save and the earlier you start the better it will be because that builds a base. So please can someone explain how 29 years UK contributions (savings in a sense) made in the earlier years of my working life deliver a pension that is less than 9 years (actually more accurately more than 8 years) of contributions to the German system - at current and all most likely future exchange rates.

The triple lock has gone some way to rectifying that situation but long term is an unsustainable concept. But that is also to be abolished - arguably too early as my own statistics suggest.

WFA was "granted" as a sop because the government of the time chose not to increase the pensions for the year in question.
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