For Newsnight: should we end universal benefits for better off pensioners?

Petallus - have I been whingeing? I was afraid that people might think I was smug because I am happy with my lot!

Bad-tempered whingeing!

Too much whingeing!

I am not sure why you asked that question, Anagram.

Quite.

I don't begrudge anybody anything to which they are entitled.

Would you begrudge a single pensioner who had never married, worked or had children, Greatnan? (Presuming they had no good reason for not having worked, of course).

Oddly enough, I am not much better off financially than my sister who has never worked a day out of the house since she was pregnant at 19! She lives in a housing association house, pays no rent or council tax, has free bus pass (which she really needs as she cannot walk very far), free prescriptions and recently had her bathroom and kitchen updated by her landlords. She receives various benefits because of her disabilities and had very good advice from a benefit advisor at her local council. She is 75.
I don't grudge her any of her benefits - her late husband paid his dues and she has brought up four sons who are all employed and paying taxes.

I have about a 60% teacher's pension and a full state pension, but don't feel 'better off'. 'Better off' than whom?

Same here Greatnan - as long as I don't have debt I am happy. No Mortgage, no car loan, and I downsized a few years ago, so there's not much housework and time to play.

I suppose we must apply Mr. Macawber's test: Income, £1, expenditure 19/11d, result, happiness. Income, £1, expenditure £1.0s. 1p , result, misery.
I regard myself as comfortably off because I do not have a large income, but I have no mortgage or debts and nobody to support but myself . I live frugally, the outgoings on my tiny flat are very low, I don't smoke, rarely drink, don't buy cosmetics, or hair-dos, or many new clothes, don't eat out unless I am away for the day. Consequently, I am able to save enough each month to pay for my travels - fortunately I get free accommodation in New Zealand for six weeks each year.
I will be happy to reveal my income in a pm, if anyone is interested. It comes from a Teacher's Pension, a Civil Service Pension, and the State Retirement Pension.

It seems to mean anyone who has an income independently of the state pension. Maybe, anyone of pensionable age who still pays income tax?

I was actually asking if anyone could define better off. It is clear that any one better off than me is well off and anyone less well off than me is poor but I would like to know exactly what a 'better off pensioner' is.

A better off pensioner is one that is better off than the one writing.
Foolish advisers exist in isolation, they forget that they have relatives that may be affected, and act like puppies seeking recognition.Quite myopic, when it comes to the upset that they cause, the worry. They have it yet to come, you can't put old heads on young shoulders.
Like the testing of the water I mentioned previously, we are more likely to realise what is happening, we have seen it all before,but what about the young ones? With the hormones and testosterone in chaos, can they be whipped up into starting an intergenerational war? The advisers will make the bullets, they will not take part in the war, much the same as Blair did.

I think you're right, absent. What these foolish advisers forget is that almost each generation has parents and probably grandparents. I doubt that they want to be 'at war' with their seniors. Do they have parents and grandparents themselves? They must come from very dysfunctional families!

Can someone please define a better off pensioner?

deserving You could well be right. However, I thought it interesting that young people do not seem to want to play the granny bashing game that various MPs and government advisors have set up. One of them talked, quite seriously, about a virtually inevitable intergenerational war. Poppycock!

They are testing the water.
Propose something controversial ,see the reaction, put it on the back burner for a while, try again,( and like the universal benefits, see how many are prepared to forgo their rights) then , if necessary, water it down a little, and give a choice. People love a choice so they end up choosing between two or more things, all of which they did not want in the first place. When the most controversial is voted down they think they have won.You end up with something nobody wanted, apart from the government, in the first place.

There was a short but interesting piece in yesterday's The Daily Telegraph that said a survey of young people (18–24 or older?) showed that the majority were very much against the idea of removing pensioners' benefits (bus pass, wfa etc.), let alone any suggestion of doing away with the state pension. Not that anyone has come out and said that it should be done away with. What does the newspaper know that we don't?

Agree with last sentence hope comes up as an emoticon , doesn"t always

replying in order of importance,
petallus, Go back to some of the earlier pages where, I, and several others, were of the opinion that this required means testing, and not only is this onerous to many, but would probably result in costing more than the benefits paid, as they are now, universally.
Only one way to peg a rug, as your nan knew, cut up your, or someone else's old clothes, cut out a suitably sized piece of burlap, and off you go.
Mamie, also go back a page or two(page 5, I think) Where I apologised for not treating the word, "universal' in it's strict context,and apologised (sort of )
Isn't it good learning how to put a line -through things-? sort of tempers the bile,or even purports to being a mistake.and the grin makes everything hunky- dory.
jeni, to many are confessing to being confused, a dangerous statement to be making, and never say you ,"must be getting SEILE" they will send the van round, time for a
Annobel, Mecca, a city in western Saudi Arabia,but its not unusual to find one in the town/city in which many of us live, and likewise it is not inconsistent or incongruous to find somewhere called Valley in a place other than Wales, or indeed a valley.
And then we have a reply to something that doesn't deserve an answer?? Could eleven words be considered a "diatribe", if the sentence itself contains the word diatribe? Greatgran, your words are otiose, and I prefer to believe that the use of the word diatribe is used in the manner the ( latin through Greek) route takes, ie Discourse, Do not assume vitriol, when someone disagrees with you.
Ella it's not just you.
I imagine this disquisition has almost run its course now, what do others think?

Deserving I think the proposal to stop free this and that for pensioners would only apply to the better off so people who are struggling would not be a/effected (sorry never know which).

Oooh, pegging a rug! That takes me back to being a child and watching my nan doing it. I'd love to have a go myself. Are you using a kit or cutting up old clothes as my nan used to do?

I thought it was just me that was

One thing this diatribe is not deserving of is an answer.

"we have a Mecca club with nary a sight of an asian". What?