Keir Starmer aka Captain Flip Flop

What a load of aggressive tripe aimed at thehappygardener
Hardly in the spirit of Gransnet.

Can people on here tell us how many times you have to post on GN before you are allowed to express a view. Are there rules I am not aware of.

I don’t understand why the OP met with such hostility for a pretty innocuous post. Or are we just not allowed to criticise Keir Starmer of this government at all? We are not all comfortably off pensioners who can manage without the WFA. And I fail to see how a clip of an interview can be dismissed as ‘unverified’.

Good luck to all of you that don't need it. I have the new state pension, minus £7.00 per week due to being contracted out. I also have a occ pen.
The winter fuel allowance was helpful as I had a astronical gas bill so I paid this into this account.
I am sick of pensioners saying oh we don't need it, when there are many pensioners who don5 get it who do.

MayBee70

And how dare you describe the PM with a term coined by a previous PM who was thrown out of parliament for lying

Well, it looks as if posters will be met with an angry ‘how dare you’ if you criticise Keir Starmer.
Guess what maybee70 we can all describe any politician any way we like.

nightowl

I don’t understand why the OP met with such hostility for a pretty innocuous post. Or are we just not allowed to criticise Keir Starmer of this government at all? We are not all comfortably off pensioners who can manage without the WFA. And I fail to see how a clip of an interview can be dismissed as ‘unverified’.

Because as I pointed out the term was a derogatory one used by the lying disgraced Boris Johnson repeatedly in parliament and imo should not be repeated.At this moment in time a lot of people seem to be trying to undermine his for various reasons.

Oreo

MayBee70

And how dare you describe the PM with a term coined by a previous PM who was thrown out of parliament for lying

Well, it looks as if posters will be met with an angry ‘how dare you’ if you criticise Keir Starmer.
Guess what maybee70 we can all describe any politician any way we like.

So why repeat a term coined by Boris Johnson?

I think this is actually me now done with gransnet. If anyone wants to keep in touch please pm me and I’ll give you my email address

I hadn’t realised that criticism of this PM was not permissible.

Obviously it is only permissible to criticise and name call Conservatives.

Now I understand this unwritten GN rule, I will consider my own membership of GN…

What you should be criticising is the cut-off point for the WFP, not the fact that it has been cut off for "better-off" pensioners.

Pensioners come with different incomes - some have only the State pension, which may also be at a lower level than average, and some have occupational pensions, or ones which they have augmented by higher payments when they had the means to do so, and some have investments that yield high interests. Yet the winter fuel payments went to all. That had to change.

The chosen cut-off point has been set at the level where people are eligible for Pension Credit, but there must be a better point that doesn't leave some people worse off than they should be. I would assume that the resultant outcry will cause it to be re-assessed and changed in the next session of Parliament.

MayBee70

I think this is actually me now done with gransnet. If anyone wants to keep in touch please pm me and I’ll give you my email address

What a massive over reaction.

Keir Starmer, the animated budgie, is the hero of most on here. Criticise him at your peril!

I wonder if the actual answer is that he is neither a saint or a villain.

I do hope so Elegran, that they see how people feel about withdrawing the WFA and come up with something else, a cut off point which won’t disadvantage millions of pensioners.

I don't understand the hostility to the OP either, I sincerely hope she/he comes back.

Gransnet is for everyone, and disagreements are bound to happen. If people leave because of some posters being unpleasant we will be left with the views of the same posters.

Actually, what made me criticise the OP was the tone of gleeful spite, plus the borrowing of BJ's playground jibe.

Had she posted the contents of her later post in the opening post, I would have sympathised with her, and agreed that there needs to be a change to who qualifies for WFA and who doesn't - and perhaps a change to the State pension too.

Lots of us in the Labour Party think that the WFP "bar" has been set too low and are doing something about it, but that a universal benefit is going to many who don't need it.

Scaremongering about "now they'll do this and that" is all speculation.

I find the headline for this thread entirely disingenuous: if you want to talk about WFA do so, but repeating right wing memes, what else do you expect - its simply inflammatory and was designed to be so.

A normal PM Galaxy who flipflops on policies once in power no matter what he’s said when in opposition and one who will get some things right and others very wrong.
An astute politician will ‘read’ the country and in this case restore the WFA and do something positive to restore faith that he can reduce immigration.

MayBee70

I think this is actually me now done with gransnet. If anyone wants to keep in touch please pm me and I’ll give you my email address

Maybee I value your posts greatly, I hope you'll come back.

rafichagran

I don't understand the hostility to the OP either, I sincerely hope she/he comes back.

Gransnet is for everyone, and disagreements are bound to happen. If people leave because of some posters being unpleasant we will be left with the views of the same posters.

I think that’s already happening tbh.😡

GrannyGravy13

I hadn’t realised that criticism of this PM was not permissible.

Obviously it is only permissible to criticise and name call Conservatives.

Now I understand this unwritten GN rule, I will consider my own membership of GN…

Don't do that, your opinion is very important it puts a different POV.
People will always think differently, and there is no hierarchy with Gransnet posters.

Yes, it was designed to be inflammatory. I think she assumed that a social media site full of older people would all automatically join in with rubbishing Starmer totally for that one plank in the many he is using in trying to build an ark for the country to survive the flood. Gransnet is more diverse than that.

Babs03

TheHappyGardener

www.facebook.com/share/r/exvmifyEty7nktay/?mibextid=UalRPS

(Apologies to those who don’t have FB and can’t see the content - I couldn’t work out another way of copying the video)
I think anyone who, like me, feels aggrieved by Labour’s decision on the pensioners’ winter fuel payment should share this video far and wide on social media - maybe it can force a discussion at Prime Minister’s Question Time??

A Torygraph reader I imagine.
There will be winter fuel payments, but targeted at pensioners who need it, we have friends who have private pensions that mean they are so well off they can’t even spend a fraction of their money before they die. And yet they got the winter fuel payments.
We did too and though by no means well off gave a bit to our grown families to help them pay the bills.
Why give money to a whole section of society without figuring out who needs it.

This used to be the argument with respect to family allowance. Some people didn't need it so they shouldn't get it.

One riposte I heard several times was that it would be more expensive to work out who needed it and who didn't than just to give it to all mothers. I'm talking history here! But I imagine the same argument could be made now with regard to sorting out who actually needs the winter fuel allowance and who doesn't.

Also, people's circumstances change. One might not need it upon retirement but then one might need it a few years on.

Such arguments are worth considering.

nanna8 “the animated budgie” - what on earth are you talking about🤷‍♀️

GrannyGravy13

I hadn’t realised that criticism of this PM was not permissible.

Obviously it is only permissible to criticise and name call Conservatives.

Now I understand this unwritten GN rule, I will consider my own membership of GN…

Don't leave GG! GN needs voices like yours.