Last week’s budget contained few surprises as most of the measures had been loudly trailed in advance. George Osborne did manage to offend the nation’s pensioners by freezing and cutting their personal tax allowances, a dangerous thing to do given the numbers in which they cast their votes. As Steve Richards of The Independent tweeted: “I have always struggled to see why George Osborne is seen as a strategic genius. I struggle a little more after today's budget.”
Once the enormity of his error hit home, the Conservative community set out on a damage limitation exercise designed to help the Chancellor down from his self-constructed gallows. At first, the spin tried to make out that it didn’t matter too much, that pensioners were being compensated in other ways. Pensions were due to rise in April, so most pensioners would not be worse off. When that argument failed to stand up to scrutiny, a far more sinister approach was adopted.
Apparently, we want all sectors of the community to feel the pain during these austere times. Pensioners, we were told, have got off lightly so far. If you’re not convinced about that, just take a look at what they have had in their lives. They got the best of the NHS, of social services, of community housing before social dumping and the right to buy turned estates into ghettoes. They were around during full employment, their savings were protected by high interest rates, they bought houses on the cheap and sold them for a fortune, retiring early on their final salary pensions and living the life of Riley. All of which, of course, is complete claptrap.
Today’s older pensioners returned from the beaches of Normandy or left their ordinance factories determined to create something better. Before they could benefit from the NHS, they had to build it in the first place. They worked the long hours needed to establish social services, to create the industries the country needed to recover, paid the taxes to support universal education. They paid National Insurance all through their lives, had a level of expendable income that most people would baulk at now. Those who retired more recently blazed the trail through the sixties and seventies, taking risks and challenging orthodoxy, winning the freedoms we take for granted today.
Even worse, it is these very people that are supporting others now. Many families are so hard pressed, they are relying on the older generation to help them out. Families who are lucky enough to have two incomes often rely on Grandparents as their major source of childcare – often unpaid – to allow them to make ends meet.
Now that it is no longer possible to turn people against each other on the grounds of race or gender, those who frequent the gutter of British politics encourage us to feel bitterness towards an older generation for being fortunate enough to have lived most of their lives in different economic circumstances. Pensioners, the line goes, should be made to pay.
In other news, Barclays Bank Chief Executive Bob Diamond is estimated to have received a tax cut in the region of £1.24 million thanks to last week’s budget. “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”.
liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter - @LiamStubbs
Facebook - Liam Stubbs Labour
Once the enormity of his error hit home, the Conservative community set out on a damage limitation exercise designed to help the Chancellor down from his self-constructed gallows. At first, the spin tried to make out that it didn’t matter too much, that pensioners were being compensated in other ways. Pensions were due to rise in April, so most pensioners would not be worse off. When that argument failed to stand up to scrutiny, a far more sinister approach was adopted.
Apparently, we want all sectors of the community to feel the pain during these austere times. Pensioners, we were told, have got off lightly so far. If you’re not convinced about that, just take a look at what they have had in their lives. They got the best of the NHS, of social services, of community housing before social dumping and the right to buy turned estates into ghettoes. They were around during full employment, their savings were protected by high interest rates, they bought houses on the cheap and sold them for a fortune, retiring early on their final salary pensions and living the life of Riley. All of which, of course, is complete claptrap.
Today’s older pensioners returned from the beaches of Normandy or left their ordinance factories determined to create something better. Before they could benefit from the NHS, they had to build it in the first place. They worked the long hours needed to establish social services, to create the industries the country needed to recover, paid the taxes to support universal education. They paid National Insurance all through their lives, had a level of expendable income that most people would baulk at now. Those who retired more recently blazed the trail through the sixties and seventies, taking risks and challenging orthodoxy, winning the freedoms we take for granted today.
Even worse, it is these very people that are supporting others now. Many families are so hard pressed, they are relying on the older generation to help them out. Families who are lucky enough to have two incomes often rely on Grandparents as their major source of childcare – often unpaid – to allow them to make ends meet.
Now that it is no longer possible to turn people against each other on the grounds of race or gender, those who frequent the gutter of British politics encourage us to feel bitterness towards an older generation for being fortunate enough to have lived most of their lives in different economic circumstances. Pensioners, the line goes, should be made to pay.
In other news, Barclays Bank Chief Executive Bob Diamond is estimated to have received a tax cut in the region of £1.24 million thanks to last week’s budget. “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”.
liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter - @LiamStubbs
Facebook - Liam Stubbs Labour
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