For years now this government have been dishing out one-off payments for high winter-fuel costs and for a derisive Christmas bonus, ( which has not been upgraded for years ), and they make all pensioners fill in a VERY complex and intrusive means test form if they feel that they need to apply for benefits or tax credits etc.

Now maybe it is time that these charitable handouts were scrapped and the pensioners of Britain were excluded from all income tax payments. At least this way we would be able to work out how much we are getting and how to spend it. Once the ratio with the state pension and the average wage is re-connected, ( in five years if Brown has his way ), we may eventually find that the pensioners of Britain are not so badly off.

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Last edited by papa_umau on Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:52 pm; edited 1 time in total

At the moment, I feel that with the State Pension as low as it is, we could do with both. If the Government of the day(any day) gets around to reestablishing parity with average earnings, then I would be happy to give up the means-tested perks, but until then I think we are due and overdue for some quality of life without having to go cap-in-hand to some bureaucratic oik who will look down and condescend to us.

(Must admit, I was a little confused by the title of this thread, thought you were asking something totally different! )

Cheers HG

Sorry HG...Yes that was a rather ambiguous title wasn't it ? Ahem !

Any way, yes, I cannot blame you for saying that we should get BOTH as we really do NEED both. Having said that I cannot see any government doing that as they need to make from us in some ways.

What I would like to see is that daily living for a pensioner is UNCOMPLICATED so that we get our money, ( which should be fair if not actually generous ), and then we should not have to be put into the situation where we are terrorised into trying to fill in those book-size forms only to get the basics.

A wee story.....

When I lived up North, ( and I was a bit younger then ), there was an old lady next door who we adopted as our gran. ( both of our actual grans had passed away ). This was a sweet old lady who asked for nothing and got nothing and seldom even had a visit from her "busy" son. After I had known her for many years I noticed that she was struggling to make ends meet and I asked her how much she had to live on. She told me that she only had her basic pension and nothing else. I was LIVID at this news.

I then aquired a benefits form and filled it in for her. After getting all that she was due she almost DOUBLED her income and received a home-help into the bargain.

She took this as a "present" - rather than a right - from the state and asked if this was anything like "National Assistance", as this was something that she didn't want to get caught up in. I realised that this was - or used to be - a dependency that many older persons did not want to have anything to do with. As expected, she was coming across as a very proud old lady who did not want "cold charity". I explained to her that this was NOT "national assistance" and she accepted this opinion, as she trusted me.

The point I am trying to make here is that she should NEVER have been put into that situation in the first place.

Very little has changed in the interim !

I am not near to getting my pension yet but I have been watching what Nu-Labour have been doing to the pensioners in Britain.

They warble on about the money that they are giving the old folk to help them pay their fuel bills and they bleat about how much extras they are paying these hard-up people when in fact they are just chucking pennies at the problem.

Any government that promised that they would remove all pensioners from any tax liability and said that they would ensure that the state pension was comparable with Europe, and pay back-dated money, would guarantee to get my vote. If they did this they could keep all of their "cold charity" payments and their bloody means test.

Thank you Zathrus, I agree, and it is wise of you to be concerned even if you are not of pension age, because it creeps up on you when you aren't looking! (I'm sute I was only 35 last week!)

Hi Hell's Grannie, I can talk as I watch my mother going through it every day.

It is simply miserable to see her struggling and knowing that I cannot get her any more help.

As a good son I try my best but even I have to work to bring in the pennies and these days I have to work all the overtime I can get. This leaves me very little time to look in on my old mum.

I don't understand why they cannot get both.

I mean, why is it that pensioners are still used as taxation targets when they are struggling as it is.

Ok, I know that there must be a few rich pensioners out there and if they wanted to the government could make allowances for them without frightening the rest of the old folk to death with mean test forms.

It just doesn't seem right to me.