THE TELEGRAPH: George Osborne suggested the Government could temporarily water down the triple lock to fund tax cuts or more spending on public services amid a growing debate about the future of the state pension guarantee.
The triple lock is a key Tory pledge that ensures the state pension rises by the highest of three metrics: average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent.
In the past, average earnings have always been calculated using the figure for wages plus bonuses but the Treasury is understood to be considering stripping out the impact of bonuses in a move which would mean a smaller than expected increase for pensioners next April.
Mr Osborne said if he were chancellor today he would be “very tempted to under-rate, i.e. not increase pensions by as much as the triple lock and other benefits, working age benefits that go to other people in society, by maybe like one or two per cent”. » | Jack Maidment, Politics Live Blog Editor | Wednesday, September 13, 2023
What a miserable SOB! Now that's truly a brilliant idea, isn't it? Why didn't Robin Hood come up with this idea, I wonder? So the man who has given us all more than twelves years of agony and austerity now wants to rob the poor to give to the rich. He wants to take a way the few crumbs that pensioners now receive each month in order to fund tax cuts for the superrich. They must need more caviare. This makes eminently good sense to insensitive, uncaring idiots, I suppose. Does this dude belong to a Satanic cult, I wonder? He is certainly no Christian. There a hot place awaiting insensitive twerps like this – in Hell! I hope the fires are already being stoked for the dickhead! – © Mark Alexander
There is already a petition by 38 Degrees against the cutting of state pensions. Please consider signing this petition for the sake of the nation's hard-hit pensioners, many of whom have little other than their measly, paltry, disgustingly small British state pension to live on anyway. Please help these people by signing this petition here.
