It's Insulting The Way Pensioners Are Being Grovelled Over.

Would not a tax threshold which will bring families on very very low incomes out of the need to claim benefits on top of their earnings be beneficial.

Quite a few have already fallen for the false promises. I also would prefer the tax income threshold to be raised for everyone.
I have no faith in either Conservative or Labour.

No, because their entitlement to benefits depends on individual circumstances.

Raising the tax threshold for all would certainly help those who are working and not claiming benefits

Whitewavemark2

They need our votes - I have no doubt some elderly can be bribed - of course it won’t happen just as the 40 hospitals didn’t happen, levelling up didn’t happen, Rwanda didn’t happen, lower immigration didn’t happen, lower NHS waiting lists didn’t happen, and on and on.

Need it or not, they won’t be getting my vote, because none of these things will happen under Labour either.

Germanshepherdsmum

We have had so many posters complaining that the tax threshold hasn’t been raised and as a consequence they are paying tax on their pension income. Now that they will receive an allowance to ensure that they don’t pay tax on their SP, they complain and say they are being insulted and grovelled over. You couldn’t make it up.

No, couldn't possibly make this round of complaints up.

AGAA4

Quite a few have already fallen for the false promises. I also would prefer the tax income threshold to be raised for everyone.
I have no faith in either Conservative or Labour.

Your comment sums up exactly how I feel.

I don’t believe any of it. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Last minute promises from a government so far down the polls it really doesn’t matter what they promising in the hope of engaging the gullible.

Perhaps they should have looked after us better during Covid

We were looked after in the most expensive way that could be during Covid. The whole b……y country was locked down to look after us!

Germanshepherdsmum

It’s not a scam!

I was looked after perfectly well during covid, weren’t you?

Raising the personal allowance for everyone would be hugely expensive, and of course it would benefit very high earners too. Then it would be that thing politicians love to accuse one another of, an unfunded promise.

Well I was still working and front line, so no not really, but I was thinking more about those in care homes or hospitals.

Scam is completely the wrong word really, what I meant was maybe “false promise” (like most of the parties make to be fair, at GE time)

Wyllow3

Would not a tax threshold which will bring families on very very low incomes out of the need to claim benefits on top of their earnings be beneficial.

Yes possibly, so would big companies paying a living wage too!

We do have to vote here in Australia, or cop a fine. Having worked at polling stations a couple of times I can say that the number of ‘spoiled’ votes is actually very low so people do mostly actually lodge a vote. You get checked off on a list when you go to vote and if you are voting out of the area you live in you go to a particular table to collect your voting slips and get crossed off there.

I’m sure that if Labour had announced this there would be no criticism.

People in care homes weren't looked after.

Cossy I was in hospital with Covid in January 2021. I was looked after in an exemplary way. I was given nine different medications and I was made well and I am eternally grateful for my life.

With regard to Care Homes, many managed to care for their residents without losing any, or many, to Covid, but it entailed very careful management. My mother was in a care home after the worst of Covid was thankfully over, but still precautions were taken whilst she was there. They had outbreaks of Covid while she was there, but no deaths, thanks to good management.

MissA they were in my mother’s care home.

I dontdoubt for one minute that care home staff looked after the residents.

It was the "ring fencing" by the government I was referring to.

Cossy

Germanshepherdsmum

So what if it’s only just been announced? It’s been announced and it’s good news.

But it’s a scam and just out there because many many conservatives rely on the over 60 vote. Perhaps they should have looked after us better during Covid!

Raise the personal allowance for all, then we and low earners all benefit.

The same as Labours message will be to the youngster's under 25, voting for 16 year olds. Same as, neither any different.

The procedures put in place to prevent the spread of Covid in my mother’s care home worked. Covid was contained and there were no deaths. Some care homes dealt with Covid very well. Many care homes had no deaths MissA although many did have deaths. Credit where credit is due though, my mother’s home did well.

All credit to the homes.
None to the government from me, though.

Germanshepherdsmum

Why don’t people understand the cost of raising the personal allowance for everyone?

I think we do understand, so better keep it frozen then. It was clearly frozen for Tories to save money, so how will they suddenly be able to find it??

maddyone

Cossy I was in hospital with Covid in January 2021. I was looked after in an exemplary way. I was given nine different medications and I was made well and I am eternally grateful for my life.

With regard to Care Homes, many managed to care for their residents without losing any, or many, to Covid, but it entailed very careful management. My mother was in a care home after the worst of Covid was thankfully over, but still precautions were taken whilst she was there. They had outbreaks of Covid while she was there, but no deaths, thanks to good management.

My MiL was also in a care home and my clinically vulnerable mother was in her own home alone. I’m not criticising care homes, do you not remember the spread in care homes at the beginning? I do and many older people did die.

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m sure that if Labour had announced this there would be no criticism.

Oh, there would. If I disagree with a policy, I disagree, wherever it originates. We’re not all blind to the faults of our chosen political party. I haven’t come across a perfect one yet.

I treat all these eleventh hour promises, either by Labour or Conservatives, with the cynicism they deserve.

This is exactly what I was referring to;-

“ Yesterday (27/4/22) the High Court ruled that decisions of the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock, were “irrational” and so unlawful, because he had failed to consider the known risk that people entering a care home without Covid symptoms would transmit the virus to the highly vulnerable care home population.

From March 2020, the Government’s policy was to free up hospital beds by discharging people into care homes. In March and the first half of April, care homes were told to care for residents without obvious Covid symptoms “as normal”, taking no extra precautions like wearing PPE or quarantining new residents. This was despite what the Court called a “growing appreciation that asymptomatic transmission was a real possibility”. The result was that people were discharged from hospitals into care homes who hadn’t been tested, and who were infected with Covid, and permitted to mix straightaway with other residents in their homes. More than 20,000 care home residents died of Covid during the first wave of the pandemic in what the Prime Minister himself has described as “an appalling epidemic”.

The Court said that: “Anyone devising a policy affecting care homes must, if they are to act rationally, bear in mind that a majority of residents of care homes are not only elderly but also have other health issues which make them particularly vulnerable to infections”. … “Those drafting the March Discharge Policy and the April Admissions Guidance”, the two government policies under challenge, “simply failed to take into account the highly relevant consideration of the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from asymptomatic transmission.”

Although there is to be a public inquiry it is only the Court that can rule on whether the Government acted unlawfully in its claim that it protected care home residents from Covid. The Court stated that this was an “important and legitimate” case.

We have held the Government to account and we hope that the most vulnerable in our society will not be overlooked and ignored in any future health emergency. It has been a long and draining journey to bring this case to court. We brought it not only for our families but on behalf of the many families in the country who lost loved ones. Ultimately we succeeded.”

I am talking about govt policy towards Covid in the first few months before they decided to take Covid more seriously!