However, I don't think those proposals as a whole would appeal to the JAMs, who comprise the group Labour needs to bring back.
I think this is true, as are your points about pensions (and I speak as one who is currently forking out to plug the 'opted out' gap in my own). I am already disgruntled at having the same state pension forecast as friends who didn't work, and who would, if they outlived their husbands, be entitled to pension credit and get more than I will, simply because I paid into an occupational pension and they didn't.
As I have banged on about before, I do not think that means-testing is ever fair, but whereas IMO nobody has the right to say what others can 'afford', clearly a family on UC are going to need a lot more to live on than a single person who has paid off a mortgage. Then again, neither do I think that someone should find themselves disadvantaged because they have paid off a mortgage.
It's tricky. I wouldn't change my voting allegiance if this policy were mooted, but to be fair, I'm not really just about managing, and I am fairly dyed-in-the-wool Labour.
I suppose it comes down to a balancing act between sticking to principles, and taking human nature into account. In the end, it is human nature that decides voting behaviour, and unless a party is voted in, they can't do anything they want to do, so a 'one step at a time' approach is probably sensible.
The inequalities in society today go much deeper than inequities in the pension system, though (close to my heart though they are ). There are generations growing up with little or no chance of ever being in a position to get off the treadmill of zero hours contracts, insecure incomes and the cruelty of being kept out of the NI system by earning too little to pay for the very basic protections it buys.
If we are to call ourselves a civilised country, never mind a liberal democracy, that has to be ironed out, and we need to find a way to give everyone a chance to have a stake in society. I appreciate that I am preaching to the converted when it comes to many on this thread, but to bring it back to where we started, I do think that these ideals are the ones held by Sir Kier, and that he would do all he could to bring them to fruition if he is given a chance to try.
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband re-arrested
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic