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

Be careful of the radioactive source !

If this be madness yet there's method in't.

goodnight sweet friend!

Parting is such sweet soorow

Then palm to palm in holy pilgrims kiss!

And when shall we all meet again?
I'm in Cardiff tomorrow?

annobel Romeo and Juliet.

In thunder, lightning or in rain....
When the hurly-burly's done,
When the battle's lost or won.

That'll be tomorrow then....

  .. C Look, love, what envious streaks
  Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
  Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Well, no mountain tops here, but good morning!

But lo what light from yonder window breaks?

Morning has broken...

What the ....?

It is the east and Juliet is the sun...

Morning, fellow netters. Any fish in the sea? I thought I saw a shark around, but it turned out it was just a dugong with delusions of grandeur. I believe they went almost extinct, didn't they, as they were not bright enough to keep away out of the nets of the hungry fishermen.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell

Sorry, wrong play.

jeni I wonder if this thread is actually a perfect example of Brownian motion?

Elegran I love the Scottish Chaucerians. Apparently they are no longer included on London University's BA syllabus. Such a shame. (Old English is no longer compulsory either.)

I've just read through this thread and am now going for a lie down!

And, anyway, just how does one define a better off pensioner?

absent The Scottish Chaucerians are the perfect answer to those who think that the Scots tongue is just "an ignorant way of speaking English"

The language of those poets was very close to Chaucer's, and in Scotland has changed less over the centuries than the language has in "correct" south-east England.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on
And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

kittkylester Someone had a go at defining a better-off pensioner way back in the thread, before all the diversions. He or she is a pensioner who has more money than whoever is speaking. I don't know how those applying benefits plan to define it, they are bound to disappoint those who fall just over the line.

Well there has been efforts at defining poverty in the past but I would think this changes over time really. But a minimum of access to heat, food (a good diet) , housing , education, health care, cultural norms etc would be a start in my book.

But the proposal isn't based on poverty, it's aimed at pensioners who have an income above a yet-to-be-decided level whom the government (and others) think don't need the perks they presently get.

Yes but if we are going to try to define a better off pensioner than we have to start somewhere and I thought that perhaps trying to define a poor one would be a good start. Once we have agreement as to what constitutes poverty then we could have a go at what constitutes a well off person. That would be much easier I would think

You'd still have to decide how much income above poverty level disqualifies a pensioner from receiving universal benefits, though - and obviously it would be way above that level.