THE GUARDIAN: Spokesperson says it is ‘right to consider all options’ as PM is pushed to reaffirm defence spending plan
Liz Truss could abandon the state pension triple lock to help plug the fiscal black hole after her disastrous mini-budget, leaving more than 12 million pensioners facing a real-terms cut in their incomes in April.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson refused four times to commit to keeping the pensions guarantee despite it being a key 2019 manifesto commitment that Truss confirmed she would stick with it just two weeks ago.
In contrast, Truss backed off a plan to scrap the government’s commitment to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 after the defence ministers Ben Wallace and James Heappey threatened to quit.
The prime minister told her cabinet on Tuesday there were “difficult decisions” ahead over where the spending cuts would fall in a 90-minute meeting from which ministers emerged grim-faced. » | Pippa Crerar, Political editor | Tuesday, October 18, 2022
It is the country that should abandon this airhead, rather than the Tories abandoning the Triple Lock. What a disgrace the Tories have become. They are a shadow of their former selves.
If the country cannot afford to inflation-proof pensioners’ state pensions in these highly inflationary times, then it begs one very simple question: Can this country afford a monarchy, with all the attendant costs that maintaining a monarchy entails?
Maybe it would be a better idea to keep our pensioners warm and fed during winter and afford them a decent standard of living rather than p*** money against the wall maintaining multiple castles and palaces that are lived in for a very short time during the year anyway.
I write this not as a committed republican but as a person committed to seeing some equity and justice in society. – © Mark Alexander
