14 Sep
11:07am, 14 Sep 2024
28,332 posts
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TROSaracen
So being able to go to a cafe quailifirs you as the ‘broad shoulders’ that deserve to be hammered. I guess Sky TV, mobile phone, ordering just eats too? |
14 Sep
11:14am, 14 Sep 2024
46,124 posts
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SPR
@richmac agree with TRO really. I don't think people needing help shouldn't be able to go to pubs and cafes. Clearly they won't have Bentleys and Ferraris but being able to go to have a weekend pub breakfast isn't grounds for cutting Pension Credit for example IMO.
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14 Sep
11:27am, 14 Sep 2024
46,125 posts
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SPR
I think means testing makes sense as there will be clearly people that don't need it. Labour probably need to be more active about getting those that should be on pension credit signed up. Not looked into why WFA allowance was made universal but there is stigma around benefits and I can imagine that making this universal at the time was seen as a small price to make sure those that needed help got it. There probably needs to be an evaluation of where pension credit starts and you could just increase pension credit instead of having the WFA (think jda has been alluding to this). |
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14 Sep
12:27pm, 14 Sep 2024
28,333 posts
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TROSaracen
It’s just not the left I (used to) be active in. It probable is right to means test the WFA. But we should be about compassion, inclusivity, trying to engage and persuade (rather than bully and badger) to change minds. I’d hope we looked at pensioners in a cafe and ask why everyone can’t do that, especially every pensioner, not instantly conclude they’re living an unjustifiable high life when it could well be their only social interaction. Let’s be the good guys! |
14 Sep
12:44pm, 14 Sep 2024
9,919 posts
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simbil
Well said TRO. Plus playing into the culture wars / divisions generally serves the right wing of politics and is a trap for the left.
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14 Sep
12:53pm, 14 Sep 2024
32,789 posts
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macca 53
Yup - what TRO said. I want everyone to have the possibility of being as rich as Croesus, but nobody to be so poor that have to choose between eating and heating.
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14 Sep
12:53pm, 14 Sep 2024
6,443 posts
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paulcook
TROSaracen wrote: Let’s be the good guys! Agree. But that has to start from the top. Seeing MPs do a double fist pump after taking money off pensioners would have been purely the domain of Conservatives. This week it's a Labour MP. It feels like a divide and rule policy again a keystone of the right-wing now adopted by Labour. And divide and rule trickles down. |
14 Sep
12:54pm, 14 Sep 2024
17,802 posts
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jda
I’m relived to say my minted mother didn’t dare complain about the WFA when I visited recently. Mind you she’s not the sort of person to habitually frequent a local cafe either.
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14 Sep
12:55pm, 14 Sep 2024
17,803 posts
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jda
And to be fair to richmac I suspect the point was not that people shouldn’t be able to have a reasonable quality of life in retirement, but that they can hardly claim poverty.
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14 Sep
12:59pm, 14 Sep 2024
6,445 posts
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paulcook
Eating in a cafe will be cheaper soon. They'll become warm banks this winter.
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