Lib Dems to Attack Tories on NHS and Pensions Triple Lock, Ed Davey Says

THE OBSERVER: The leader says his party is focusing on the NHS and protecting pensions to woo Conservatives in rural heartlands

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey at the Barton Hills nature reserve in June 2023 while campaigning in next month’s Mid Bedfordshire byelection. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian
The Liberal Democrats are planning to open two fronts against the Conservatives in their traditional heartlands, with a campaign focused on NHS waiting lists and a pledge to protect the pensions triple lock.

In an interview with the Observer, Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said that the scale of support his party had been receiving from lifelong Tory voters meant that there was now no Tory seat in either the “blue wall” or the Conservatives’ rural heartlands that was safe.

The Lib Dems are in an increasingly optimistic mood as their annual conference takes place this week after a string of byelection wins, including in Chesham and Amersham, and Tiverton and Honiton. There is also mounting concern among Tories in constituencies where the Lib Dems are in second place.

Davey’s party is now honing an election campaign designed to win over liberal, pro-remain Tory voters as well as rural communities that have been out of reach to the Lib Dems for years. He said that, unlike in the run-up to previous elections, concern about the NHS and GP waiting times was a “common thread” across all the voters it was targeting. » | Michael Savage, Policy Editor | Sunday, September 2023

In my opinion, this is the gentleman who would make the best prime minister for our times. This is the man who could lead this country out of the mess and morass we now find ourselves in after thirteen years of Tory screw-ups and misguided government. – © Mark Alexander

The Pensions Triple Lock Is Still Needed – Don’t Let the Tories Unpick It

THE GUARDIAN – LETTERS: Readers respond to suggestions that the Conservatives are considering plans to water down the scheme designed to enhance the state pension

Your report (Treasury officials mull one-off break from pensions triple lock, 12 September) says: “Any change to the way the state pension is calculated would be controversial because the Conservatives pledged in their last election manifesto to abide by the [triple-lock] formula.”

“Controversial” is an understatement. As recently as last month, Rishi Sunak confirmed, without any caveats and in full knowledge of the likely increase, that the triple lock would apply from next year (Sunak pledges to keep to pension triple lock despite signs of extra £10bn cost, 16 August). He even insisted he was comfortable with pensioners receiving the full annual uplift and brushed aside concerns about affordability.

If the government now backtracks on this unequivocal commitment, what does that say about Sunak’s credibility and promise to govern with “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”? Read more letters on the triple lock here » | Mike Pender, Cardiff | Monday, September 18, 2023

Temporarily Cut Triple Lock to Fund Tax Cuts, George Osborne Suggests

George Osborne, the former chancellor, is pictured during an appearance on ITV's Good Morning Britain programme
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.

Pensions Triple Lock and Benefits in Spotlight as Sunak Delays Fiscal Plan

THE GUARDIAN: No 10 not committing to keeping triple lock or inflation-linked benefits rise in 17 November statement

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt at the start of the first cabinet meeting of Sunak’s premiership on Wednesday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty Images
Ministers are to re-examine the pensions triple lock and increasing benefits in line with inflation over the next fortnight, according to No 10, after Rishi Sunak delayed the announcement of the government’s fiscal plans from 31 October to 17 November.

The Treasury has said the new date will now be a full autumn statement, with Sunak telling his cabinet that time needed to be made to do things in the proper way.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said he had agreed the change of date with Sunak and that the statement would set out in detail plans to reduce debt and a medium-term plan to grow the economy.

Sunak said it was “important to reach the right decisions and there is time for those decisions to be confirmed with cabinet”.

But in exchanges after prime minister’s questions, Sunak’s spokesperson made no commitment to the triple lock on raising pensions, a Conservative manifesto pledge, or to uprating benefits in line with inflation, which Sunak committed to doing as chancellor.

Truss had previously committed to the triple lock – a guarantee that the state pension will rise every year by whichever is highest of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5% – after doubts were raised by Hunt about whether an inflation-linked rise would be possible. “That is something that is going to be wrapped up into the fiscal statement, we wouldn’t comment ahead of any fiscal statements or budgets,” she said. » | Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor | Wednesday, October 26, 2022

If we cannot afford the Triple Lock, then we certainly cannot afford to maintain a royal family with all the expense that the maintenance of a royal family entails. – © Mark Alexander

Related here.

Liz Truss Faces Unrest over Public Spending Cuts and Pensions Triple Lock Threat

THE GUARDIAN: Senior Tory ministers, Labour party and the public all expected to resist cuts, especially to frontline services

A YouGov poll shows half of Conservative members think Liz Truss should resign. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Liz Truss is facing cabinet unrest over her plans for brutal public spending cuts across all departments after the disastrous mini-budget put major pledges at risk, including the pensions triple lock.

The prime minister held a 90-minute cabinet meeting on Tuesday in which she warned ministers that “difficult decisions” lay ahead.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, told them “everything is on the table” as he strives to find tens of billions of pounds in savings after ditching Truss’s economic plan. Health, education and welfare are among those areas expected to be hit.

One Whitehall official said departments were already preparing for cuts “significantly higher” than previously planned, with Hunt’s tax U-turns estimated to raise £32bn, leaving a £38bn hole in the public finances. » | Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot | Tuesday, October 18, 2022

This woman has been a bloody effing disaster! The Tories, too, are a bloody effing disaster! A bigger mess of Brexshit is hard to imagine! As for the economy being in safe hands under the Tories... well, that has been proven to be a big lie. A myth. The stuff of fairy stories. Hopefully, the Tories will soon be extinct. We can't allow our country to be run by a band of such incompetent fools ever again. – © Mark Alexander

Liz Truss promises to keep pensions triple lock: Truss’s PMQs comment at odds with Downing Street and Treasury’s previous refusal to commit to pledge »

Liz Truss May Abandon Pension Triple Lock and Says ‘Difficult Decisions’ Ahead

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