Pensioner Problem for MPs

However, they should think very carefully about how and where they would draw the line which defines a well-off pensioner. If getting these benefits involves filling in forms requiring detailed personal information on all income and savings this would definitely save money because the wealthy wouldn’t waste time filling them in, the poor pensioners frequently never fill in forms and many other pensioners would be reluctant to disclose this information as they would be wary of where it might eventually end up

Remember how reluctant MPs were to disclose their expenses used on maintaining moats, desirable duck houses, non-existent second mortgages and, it was also said in the findings, enough petrol to get to the moon and back which cost some of them their seats and others spending time in Her Majesty’s prisons many of whom now want all pensioners finances closely scrutinised.

So, by saving for your retirement, while paying in 40 years’ of contributions into the state pension scheme, this could mean that you lose these benefits; whereas the European Union is now insisting that our government should pay out very generous benefits to residents from Europe who have only lived here for a few months – no wonder European workers continue to move to the UK in vast numbers.

The big risk for MPs proposing these measures is that they could lose a significant proportion of pensioner voters, who may well feel that a lifetime of paying into a state pension fund alone entitles them to these universal benefits, regardless of their present financial status. With UKIP votes now likely to greatly influence the outcome of the next general election, who wins the pensioners’ votes, could be the key factor in who next runs the country.

By stopping winter fuel payments to the 600,000 high income tax payers over 61 this would save about £100 million annually, yet the tax system alone could be used to claw back the cost of universal benefit payments to wealthy pensioners.

Many MPs support the security services snooping on our internet use and e-mails, so we shouldn’t be surprised if they now want to force pensioners to disclose their full financial details just to get a bus pass, with big benefit savings if they don’t participate.Still, to his credit, David Cameron has so far kept his promise to protect pensioner benefits until the current Parliament ends. Yet senior Liberal Democrats are now calling for them to be means-tested from April 2015 with Nick Clegg seemingly obsessed about millionaire pensioners having free bus passes.

In fact it was his speech in September 2012 that angered Lord Sugar, when he used his name to illustrate the availability of free bus passes to wealthy pensioners. Who then responded by tweeting “the twit Nick Clegg moaning about me having a bus pass. Idiot I haven’t got one” and “even if I did have a bus pass I’ve personally paid tens of millions in tax and my companies hundreds of million in the past 45 years. What has Clegg done?” Then “I wonder if Nick Clegg’s rich wife will take her bus pass when she becomes of age and if he will take his EU pension. The man is an embarrassment”

Yet Nick Clegg should perhaps worry more about losing the confidence of the many middle-class voters who believe that he also wants them to lose benefits; especially as he has already lost the support of students over what they see as a betrayal of his promise on tuition fees.

The former Chancellor and P.M. Gordon Brown understood the risk of taking universal benefits off pensioners, rich or otherwise, because unlike teenage activists worried about steep rises in their student tuition fees’, most pensioners do vote, and in far greater and growing numbers.

Yet if we do end up with another coalition government we now know that manifesto promises are meaningless anyway. So probably no vote on getting out of Europe then, but where in any of the previous manifestoes were the controversial gay marriage issues mentioned – perhaps in extremely small print.

Disillusionment with politicians in Europe has already allowed extremist parties, maverick characters and comedians to get elected, so plundering pensioners’ perks could also help let in loony or extremist candidates who could create a parliament that is ineffective and short lived.

In the 2010 general election there were 29.6 million people who voted and now in 2013 there are 14 million people over the age of 60 and 10.3 million over 65; the section of society who do vote in large numbers and who could ultimately decide who will govern us after May 2015.
 

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