A Labour MP has argued that the UK should consider reforming pension policies and wealth distribution among older generations to help fund increased defence spending
Writing in an opinion piece first published by PoliticsHome, Graeme Downie, MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, said the debate around defence funding risks placing disproportionate burden on younger people while avoiding more politically difficult choices.
Downie set out the issue in terms of generational fairness in the context of national security. He wrote: “Why should young people fight, risking their lives, for older people who have created a system where wealth and power is concentrated in the upper age brackets.”
He argued that modern conflict, particularly lessons drawn from Ukraine, is increasingly reliant on skills more commonly associated with younger generations. “Drone warfare, rapid software adaptation, remote control munitions, complex and hi-tech data management… War is, indeed, a young person’s game,” he wrote.
The MP said increasing defence spending is necessary but cautioned against presenting the issue as a choice between welfare and defence. “The debate has almost immediately been presented as a false choice of ‘welfare or defence’,” he said, adding that reducing welfare could undermine economic resilience and long-term military capability.
Instead, Downie suggested that those who had benefited most economically in recent decades should contribute more. “Some of the conversation now… must include asking those people who benefited financially from peace to sacrifice a portion of that to pay for future security,” he wrote.
This could include changes to the pensions triple lock, which he identified as one area that should be considered as part of a broader funding discussion. He noted that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the policy could cost over £15 billion annually by the end of the decade.
Downie stressed that any reforms should still protect vulnerable pensioners but argued that avoiding such discussions risks undermining public support for defence. He wrote: “If we continue with a dichotomy of ‘defence or welfare’… we risk that the people we need to help us win being unwilling to fight at all.”
The problem with socialism is that run out of other people’s money. Still true today
It’s worth pointing out that the triple lock on pensions is a Tory policy now readily supported by Nigel Farrage. It has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with populism and bribing part of the electorate.
A very careful narrative has been sown to say the basic state pension is not a benefit but something people paid in for.
The reality is it is a benefit no different to universal credit or child support.
When the Generals and the Daily Mail talk about cutting benefits they often seem to be hinting that it’s children and disabled peoples benefits that should be cut and not pensioners.
It is fundamentally different because it depends on proven contributions over a working life. At any point during a working lifetime, an individual can obtain an estimate from the DWP of his/ her accrued entitlement to date.
Benefits depend, not on contribution, but on establishment of need, often little more than a claim with no real proof.
Pensions are taxable income so the state already recoups a significant proportion of pension outlay.
Wealth is skewed towards older people because much of it ( >75%) consists of the value of a house, purchased over a long period, together with the value of private pension pots.
The cost of the state pension is manageable by raising the pension age. The benefits bill is rising rapidly as more younger people learn to play the system. That’s the problem the government dare not tackle because of pressure from backbenchers.
UK has the lowest state pension in the world G7.
That’s called “cope” son
I pay £150 a year in NI contributions for a pension worth over £10,000 a year. How’s that not a benefit?
Is he really your son?
Spot on. However the triple lock in my opinion is not sustainable but will remain for the foreseeable future purely as a political tool.
It’s not just your opinion, it’s mathematically unsustainable. Given long enough, it’s guaranteed that the triple-lock will mean that 100% of government spending becomes pensions.
NI is a tax. It is not a contract between the individual and the government to provide a defined benefit for NI payments. The government can at will, vary the rate at which the state pension is paid or cease to pay it all. However there are 12 million voters in receipt of the state pension cutting the rate at which the state pension is paid is political suicide
You are so wrong Jim
I have paid my N.I.dues in a full working life
My net pension has gone up up this year by a pitiful amount per month which wouldn’t even allow a portion of fish and chips
The personal tax allowance at £12,500 fixed for many years is clawing back any so called increases
My daughter who had a top job in Italy straight fron uni for over 5 years as came back after Brexit and receives more on benefits than my state pension and has never contributed to UK taxes
I am confused about thet
Can I just apologise on behalf of all the workers, we are sorry that our wages did not rise fast enough to give you an above inflation rise on your triple locked government benefit and that you are paying tax on your pension income now because it rose by more than inflation and incomes over the past 15 years. Really sorry
I have to say though it brings me some measure of joy that on her return to the UK your daughter wasn’t left destitute and on the street.
😊
Jim I’m still working at 68 and i don’t expect the younger generation to support me ,in fact i’ve been training them as apprentices in engineering for the past 20 years, handy when you want to make bullets for our sons to shoot theirs , i don’t know how old you are, but when you work all your life and then have to listen to someone like you spout on about how hard done by you are, I really hope hope you live to to old age and find out just how little this country cares about a lifetime of contributions and I really hope you you struggle to make ends meet and feel you cant stop working .
Fundamentally, the triple-lock means that your pension will increase at the fastest of: wage growth, inflation, or 2.5% per annum. That means that if your pension didn’t increase by much, average wages also didn’t increase by much.
Not expecting the younger generation to support you is an admirable sentiment, but fundamentally the state pension is exactly that.
I would just like to point out I’m passed pensionable age 68 and still working ,and the few friends left are as well, as a number have past and didn’t get to draw their state pensions. seems to me the focus on pensioner’s being a burden on society is a little unfair when most have paid taxes all their working life , there are many in this country who do not and have no intention of ever working, and calling the state pension “benefit” just a means to make it easier to take it away by a future government , some of the comments on this post must be coming from people with big company pensions or MPs maybe with no financial fears when they retire , most of us just saved what we could .
Technically Jim we are all paying NI which is supposed to be for the state pension (which we all know it just goes into a big pot for Governments to piss away) and in theory it is therefore not a benefit but a scheme which is about paying for your future. It is about contributions over a lifetime hence why many pensions are different amounts.
However the whole pensions needs a revamp as the triple lock is unsustainable and is now a political beast, people are living much longer and more people are claiming some sort of benefit, wether in work or out of work, and there is simply not the money around to do everything. The Tories use the triple lock to keep it pensioners voting pool happy and Labour uses benefits to keep their voters sweet! It’s a political thing and no longer any sort of deal between the people and the Government regarding old age!
Hi Airborne, its one of the things lost in the debate and weaponised by many bad actors in the media. NI was originally charged to provide sickness and unemployment coverage (benefits according to the Daily Mail) and was only later expanded to include pensions (see below) NI has never at any point been sufficient to cover the welfare system and it has always relied on top ups from general taxation. The basic state pension remains the biggest welfare payment the government makes no matter what people want to call it and its the only benefit that has been increased substantially over the past 15 years.
I think people, apparent patriots, need to take a long cold hard look in the mirror about why they are ok with children and the disabled being denied support they are entitled to from paying NI but they feel millionaire pensions should be entitled to a non means tested benefit that is guaranteed to go up faster that any benefit or private pension and that this increased is to be guaranteed for an indefinite period of time.
The only way we can get out of the shit we are in is for everyone to share the bourdon, that means having a more realistic increase in pensions, everyone paying a bit more tax and cutting the number of people claiming disability rather than simply penalising disabled people who are genuinely disabled and have also paid into an NI system for most of their lives.
Universal Credit, Child Benefit and the Basic State pension and all benefits paid for via NI and General Taxation.
“Introduced by the National Insurance Act 1911 and expanded by the Attlee ministry in 1948, the system has been subjected to numerous amendments in succeeding years. Initially, it was a contributory form of insurance against illness and unemployment, and eventually provided retirement pensions and other benefits.[1]”
Citation from The Committee Office, House of Commons
Agreed, the average “contributions” would never cover a “normal” length of retirement previously, never mind nowadays when most people are living another 10 years plus. Some people can live longer as a retiree than they did as a working age individual. A lot of benefits are actually in work benefits, and most people aren’t in fact scroungers etc as many are portrayed. That issue then brings us into the larger issues of the economy, low paid imported workers keeping wages low, tax and who should/could pay (and chased up) offshore tax havens etc and economic decisions to promote growth in the long term. In the short term most reasonable people would not mind an extra penny in the pound on tax for defence, if it was guaranteed to go directly for defence and not in the piss pot of cash various Governments use to promote their own voter pool. Alas we are currently eating an economic shit sandwich and have a political elite with limited clue, or the balls, to do something game changing. Cheers Jim.
agree
I am in shock! I agree with every line of that post and that is writing as a 64yo.
I suppose it had to happen eventually.
The world must be going crazy 👍
We will all do are best to die early for you mate, you can never have enough money for bullets and guns right ?
Er no in the current climate “bullets and guns” will keep us safe and enable people to continue to draw their state pensions!
Spoken like a true Maga supporter , Killing breeds more killing! your name suggests you are ex military you should know that .
Yaaaaaaaaaawn it seems to be troll time!
I saw your the post you deleted , your grammar is still awful by the way 🙂 you just don’t like being called out .
Oh dear, read your reply to me, most amusing regards grammar, do stop trolling as it confirms to all on here your sad status, good boy.
Oh I’m more than happy Airborne , I’m a boomer :).
🤡🤡
Yaaaaaaaaaawn it seems to be troll time
🤡
A serious question Airborne, who do you think is the greatest threat to the UK ? Russia, despite their numerical advantages are being pushed back ,or at the very least held a bay. China may want to expand but economically not with military force Taiwan maybe ? I’ve been to China a number of times an amazing country, most countries have a defense budget right MOD for example. America on the other hand has now have a department of war with forward operating bases across Europe and beyond .So will all this money used to make bigger and better weapons at the risk of greater old age poverty and an NHS already on its knees just go to the military industrial complex?.
No conversation I’m afraid, you have already proven your troll credentials and now try a different tac! Only question is are you a paid troll or just the sad ones (age 68, still having to work) who have limited interaction with real people. Now thank you for your efforts, you failed, bye bye.
What do you think the 12 million voters in receipt of the state pension will do with their votes in your scenario? Vote to make themselves poorer ?
My scenario, what scenario?
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”
Yaaaaaaaaaawn
I see you’re an advocate for a future war that you will never fight in “Airborne” Iran, Ukraine, nice little forever wars 1000’s dying and for what a few megalomaniacs ? its never going to change because it never has ,maybe you have seen combat who knows I’m inclined to think you haven’t because you seem against peace I’ve never meet a veteran who wants to go through it again .
Hey troll boy thought the discussion was about the triple lock, stop being sad and trying to troll people with your nonsense, bore off, good troll.
Amazing grammar , i just don’t like make believe soldiers .
🤡
“populism” is democracy.
It’s not liberal democracy, pure populism is mob rule.
People Vote in China and they have more than one political party, but its not a “democracy” even though they say they are.
They lack aspects such as an independent judiciary and a constitution which populism tends to support removing as well.
Populists tend not be be patriots though tending to favour the self over the nation or the people although many tend to clothe themselves as patriots they just think its everyone else that should be making the sacrifice not them.
That seems to have been copied from a pamphlet for the inadequate.
“Liberal democracy”
“Tends”
“Tend”
“Tending”
“Favour the self”
“Clothe themselves as patriots”
UTTER fluff.
Thanks David, I didn’t take it from a pamphlet, I wrote it all myself ( in a hurry) but I am glad you think its good enough to come from published work.
Wow, you admit that!
Meanwhile in the real world, this is people’s private pension being forced to be spent on not where it gives the greatest return but what’s convenient to the government. Also in the real world there are 12 million voters in receipt of the state pension. Guess what happens if you decide to let inflation destroy the value of the state pension.
We have some of the lowest state pensions in the developed world. They are part of the social contract, which the left has torn apart in recent decades by handing out very generous benefits to people who are capable of contributing to the system but choose not to, or those who have just arrived and have no intention of contributing or loyalty to Britain in general.
The triple lock is small fry compared to the actual state pension age, which has been increased to 67 already, and will continue to be increased to 68. With an average age of death in the UK around 81 years, an average person in the UK will only receive their state pension for 13 or 14 years.
One problem with the state pension specifically is that even those that don’t earn it are basically given the equivalent anyway through pension credit. That is an area I would be very happy to cut back on. We are currently punishing people for doing the right thing i.e. working or saving, and rewarding those that don’t, through left wing policies. Forcing people to sell their houses or raiding their pensions to pay for care homes for example, whereas those that decided to be financially reckless by not paying into a pension etc received fully subsidised care, creates a sense of “why would I bother”.
Hi I was going to defer taking my state pension I’m still working at 68, my financial adviser advised me to take it regardless of the tax hit
because the stats on living to 81 are way off in reality in his experience. Maybe we are all living longer but judging by the friends I have lost in the last few years it don’t feel like it .
Like all government departments, the M.O.D. will spend two million pounds deciding how to spend one million.
Downie’s right that the money could in part come from pensioners, paying careful attention to means-orienting tax hikes. Increasing inheritance tax progressively would be an even better way of rediverting money to defence and other essential functions. But the best would be in overhauling the tax system writ large, increasing taxes on very high and ultra-high earners, and closing tax loopholes to ensure greater tax parity in percentage terms, and ensuring off-shore corporations can’t avoid paying taxes in the markets where they make their profits. But all that’s just the stuff of dreams and wish-horses – no politician has the balls to take on the very wealthy, and it’s so much easier to bash pensioners and the middle-income tranche.
Some of what you say is spot on but the wealthy paying more tax is not practical, as the wealthy already pay more tax in proportion to their numbers, than anyone else. The “wealthy” aka entrepreneurs, private sectors, investments etc are the ones who create money, employ people and pay their various tax’s! If you screw them for more, off they pop (as many are doing now) to other lower tax countries! Over taxing the “rich” is a left wing socialist dream which ensures less tax revenue in the long run.
I agree, as soon as you focus on raising the tax of one group you invariably don’t raise much. If taxes are to rise it needs to be on basic rate income tax, NI and VAT. That’s how they do it in Scandinavia, keep business taxes competitive, tax the population that benefits most from the services. Everyone rich and poor pays those taxes.
Nonsense. Those with a higher earned income and those with greater wealth are conflated in arguments like yours, but despite some crossover, they aren’t the same, and I think nobody should be arguing for higher income taxes for higher income earners. The “wealthy” that campaigners are talking about are not those you characterise at all. They are those who have a large stash of assets and live off unearned income. They don’t need to work. They are mostly not entrepreneurs, and they most definitely don’t create money (or even value, which what I assume you mean) through this wealth. To tax those whose lifestyles are propped up by the assets they own is by far the best way forward in a country where wealth inequality is causing young people’s lives to be worse on average than their parents’. Not necesarily using a wealth tax, but more likly through higher taxes on unearned income.
So you presume if someone is a high net worth they are all inherited wealth as opposed to earned wealth? Your argument is one of presumption and political ideology. Higher earned income and or wealth, depending on assets, are judged the same to HMRC.
Inheritance tax is the most immoral of all taxes.
You used the word “earners”, yes they earn it, nature in action.
Everybody should pay the same rate of tax.
Agreed regarding inheritance tax, its a Government sponsored scam.
easiest tax in the world to avoid
Oh please, show me how.
Even my EARNED private pension will be subject to that tax next year.
Envy, the shallowness of inadequates.
Increase state pension age in line with improvements in life expectancy in order to stabilise the dependancy ratio. And lower state pension age by one year for each child a person has, up to a maximum of 3 or 4 years – will encourage a more sustainable population tax base.
And reform public sector pensions, not necessarily move from DB to DC, as that would incur an immediate cost going from pay-as-yo-go to a funded system, but reduce accrual rates. 45ths accrual rate in civil service is ridiculous – should be 60ths at most, more like 80ths.
DB pensions were gone over 15 years ago.
You are out of date.
I work in pensions, so I know what I’m talking about. Final Salary pensions are a thing of the past in the public sector, but DB (defined benefit) pensions remain for the vast, vast majority of public sector workers in the form of CARE (Career Average Revalued Earnings). The switch from final salary to CARE was supposed to make public sector pensions cheaper, but in reality it hasn’t saved that much so far because inflation and wages haven’t different much over the past 15 years, and other trade-offs made the CARE pensions more valuable in some ways (higher accrual rates, for example).
A switch to DC would get the taxpayer off the hook in the long-term, but in the short to medium term would mean that we couldn’t use current active member contributions to fund current retired members pensions, so would increase short term costs (as the current active member contributions would need to be invested).
A lowering of accrual rates on the other hand would reduce the long term costs to taxpayers without getting them off the hook entirely, but doesn’t introduce the short term costs (assuming the contributions rates are kept the same / similar).
I agree with that, people with more children, especially women should get to retire earlier as they contributed more.
😂
Sort the tax system out. The fact that I as a private citizen earning mid-high five figures, paid more in income tax than Starbucks did in corporation tax on sales of £525m is, frankly, obscene.
OT
Loving reading UKAFC this morning.
A written answer has confirmed that Healey’s “additional 200 million” for P8 he was prattling on about the other week is just the next instalment of an ongoing support contract for the next 2 years!
And Healey was bigging it up as some magical extra that HMG were doing.
Lies, half truths, deflection, call it what you like.
No extra sonobouys, no extra anything.
I believe nothing this government say, and I hope Trump keeps calling them out on Defence, not that they csn embarrass themselves any further but it’s something.
Scum. UTTER SCUM.
Agreed but there are some jobs out there which retirement at an older age is not feasible.
Many jobs.
Mate why the hell did you get this reply! My reply was different to you and was in fact commenting on Healey and the shite he has been spouting. Sorry mate lol.
👍 It was obviously not meant for me mate.
As for the politics crap going on up thread, I agree.
A nation of “peasants on benefits” the Socialist utopia, with the rich taxed so much they leave, leaving all the same and little in the way of job creators, wealth creators, employers, all things those with money can do.
Harks back to the Soviets….
The most meaningful reform of state pensions would be a means test so that those who do not need them do not get them.
Say perhaps for pensioners with income over 2x average overall income.
Envy.
A very shallow condition.
Scrap triple lock so everyone has an incentive to care about wages and inflation. Introduce means testing so we can stop giving free holidays to millionaires while working people struggle to eat. Raise capital gains tax to be at least equal to income tax so we can stop punishing people for actually doing the work.
Scrap triple lock, keep older people in work longer. Improving their pensions.
Keeping younger people out of work.
The very stupid thoughts that come from envy.
Yes of course, silly me, we wouldn’t want to encourage people to actually save for their pensions instead of relying on the magic money tree would we?
I have paid for mine, now it will fall under inheritance tax.
Plus, it will get taxed more because the threshold is taken up by the state pension that I have strived for.
As for wages, there was no such thing as zero hour contracts in my time. There is your poverty.
Too many people for too few jobs – go on, blame us for that.
Striven probably.
Yeah now explain how “too many people for too few jobs” are supposed to pay for pensions mathematically guaranteed to outpace the economy.
The triple lock was only meant to be a temporary measure to bring up pensions, removing it isn’t a punishment it’s a simple necessity.
Labour talking about defence, putting up ideas, having a debt but never geting around to doing any thing. Its a interesting idea but like most ideas by them its about taxing the better off in thier minds who paid in to the system more after they retire. Cut welfare spending which has gone up by £20 billion under them, would solve all this, an idea they can and will never do.
You can not tax your way out of things the same thing they try every tme in power, tax spend, tax spend but they still spend more than get in by far.
The problem with all these “more money for defence” ideas is that unless the specific extra tax raised is hypothecated (i.e. specifically ring-fenced so it can only be used for defence), then all that will happen is the money will go into the big general pot and there will suddenly be some urgent pressing need for additional billions for something else that is not defence related.
Whilst they might pretend otherwise (e.g. the ongoing pretence that National Insurance funds the NHS etc), the reality is that UK governments of all colours generally do not do hypothecated taxes.
Those of a trusting nature would say that lack of hypothecation of taxes allows the government to be flexible in funding things.
Those of a more cynical disposition might argue that hypothecation might force governments to be more transparent about how much money is going to particular things, making openly clear which things are “over budget” and thus revealing which parts of the electorate are being bribed for their votes at any given point in the electoral cycle 🙂
Hypothecation in a recession means that spending falls when the economy falls. How do intend to hypothcate the 120 billion + annual borrowing. 8% of government spending is debt interest and its the 3rd biggest item of expenditure. Hypothecation doesn’t survive first contact with reality.
Bribed, they are about to include private pension funds into inheritance tax.
You cherry pick your whitterings.
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“…a system where wealth and power is concentrated in the upper age brackets.”
I’m in the ‘upper age bracket’ – I have neither significant wealth nor any ‘power’.
Where did I go wrong?
Typical left-leaning press/media using a Khmer Rouge style narrative to make the young hate the old.
They never blame globalisation, population increase (costs rise, services decline), or the fact corporates moved operations to China, Mexico, and india,
a decision most of us were not involved in, but saw us lose good jobs to offshoring all the same.
The young have more opportunities to make money via social media (blogs, vlogs, site subscriptions,” pay per click”, being an influencer, etc.)
Wealth and power ALWAYS lies with the older generations and has done so since time immemorial. The real issue is not that this particular disparity exists but the one between higher and lower earners. And this latter disparity does not solely exist amongst the older generation! The older generation have obviously had more time to accumulate what they have, and the tax avoidance system serves to increase the disparity. The gap between higher and lower has increased dramatically over the last couple of decades. At what point does higher start and lower end? Different things mean different things to different people.
Just pensions?
Re: The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reports a “staggering” rise in mental health issues among younger adults, which is the main driver of increased disability claims.
Conditions such as anxiety, depression, behavioural disorders, and ADHD have seen a 36% rise in claims (ONS data)
So my time “fighting” for this country doesn’t count then. Once youre past your sell by date just piss of over there and jump on that scrap heap. I assume the poor unfortunate youth of today will be gladly giving up their pensions too when they reach the age of being a burden.
I assume Mr Downie wont even dream of dipping into his no doubt substantial MPs benefit package. Utter shiote and click bait.
To quote Mr Downie “Why should young people fight, risking their lives, for older people who have created a system where wealth and power is concentrated in the upper age brackets.”
Like you having served for 23 years (joined up at seventeen but does not count until eighteen).
I then continued to pay my national insurance up to sixty six, fifty two years worth. there a good few of us I botheredcollecting a pension we have earned.
Do those of us who served count for nothing. Most of us would probably agree when the benefits cost outweighs every thing else then there is something very wrong.
Pensions should be linked to CPI like everything else. Makes no sense increasing by the highest of three measures. Also people talking about paying NI all their lives as if that covers their pension, it quite clearly doesn’t.
Todays workers will never get anywhere near the state and public sector pensions todays pensioners enjoy. Its just a government bribe for votes.
A £5.00 a month stand alone ‘Defence Tax’ would raise about £2.5 billion per year, no-where near enough but if ring-fenced for equipment programmes it would help. A fantasy proposal of course, no government would risk their voter base, but an option if we find ourselves in a national emergency perhaps.
It really is time to keep this country out of foreign wars and to become neutral
In the tax year 2023-2024 there was a difference of £46.8 billion between tax owed and tax collected. HMRC should get off its arse and sort that. Close all the loop holes and then job sorted
Not really. Our deficit this year was around 120bn.
Britain is about the only major economy that does not put a tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. A new 15% tariff would still be lower than most other countries. Also scrap the electric car grant. Why should the working poor subsidise the smug middle classes. Put the tariff & subsidy money to extra defence spending.
Keep the pension triple lock, but cut the minimum rise from 2.5% down to 2%. That money can go to defence.
Also, cap universal credit rises to under 5%. The recent 6.5% rise means many people are worse off working, than those on benefits.
We do charge them a tariff of 10% on cars which is very close to what now charge us at 15%. The current government managed a big reduction in tariffs from China.
We don’t increase their tariff as they will increase ours and China is an important export market for our luxury cars.
Used to be.
Keeping thier grubby little hands off our pensions we worked hard for would make me happy. When I was young and starting out in life I don’t remember blaming the older generation for the woes of the world.
So what about those who spent 22 years in the military to ensure that there was peace. Can I get a bonus.
As for the triple lock, that the 3 values and increase the pension by the mean figure
Out of interest what part of the military did you serve ?
Seeing as the Govt is making it nigh on impossible to accumulate any savings/wealth, that’s a pot of cash that won’t last long.
Funny how those arguing about reducing state pensions seem to be keen on cutting what is still a very low income for old people whilst we are spending currently £25.8 billion a year, a sum equivalent to nearly fifty per cent of UK annual spending on defence on subsidies for renewable energy generation all in our attempt to achieve net zero by 2050.
I am all for a progressive transition away from fossil fuels but we have some of highest energy prices in the world putting many of all ages directly into fuel poverty whilst simultaneously reducing our own competitiveness in the the world. We could help this transition by selling more oil and gas licenses to help.
We could also stop spending Billions looking after the uninvited guests we get each year coming across the Channel whilst also specifically forcing through productivity initiatives in the public sector which has become ever larger despite supposed efficiency drives. The first targets – no more 4 day weeks, back to 40 hour weeks and reduce the pensions for those at the top end of the civil service, which are still far to generous.
There are choices but you have to have the political will to make them and face down powerful vested interests.
What is for sure is you cannot get growth, generate wealth and increasing the size of the pie by taxing people and businesses more.
If he wants to shave some money off pension costs to fund defence, I would suggest he starts by looking at public sector pension schemes that are generous to an extent unheard of in the private sector ever since Gordon Brown’s raid.
This idea that pensioners, most of whom started full-time work at 14-18 and part-time work at 12-14, owe something to the younger generation, most of whom don’t seem to start work until 21+, is a joke. If you have wasted 3 or more years studying a waste-of-time degree at a second-rate university instead of getting a proper job, I have no sympathy for you or your £50k debt. If you want somebody to compensate you for this, talk to the teacher who encouraged you and the parents who allowed you to go, but don’t expect those who have worked hard from their teenage years to dip into their pockets for you.
Fact I have an MFI pension and an NHS pension.. pound for pound from what I invested the MFI pension is far better.. the modem NHS pensions is not final salary and your contribution can be up to 13.5% of your salary… how my people in the private sector contribute 13.5% of their salary to pensions…
There is an unfortunate truth we as a nation have to deal with and it’s an existential question we have been avoiding for a long long time because it’s not a nice conversation to have.. but those of us who are shall we say ‘getting to the point life we where we need to slow down’ cannot simply say “fuck you I’ve paid my dues’ bury our heads in the sand and let the collective collapse go on for another generation.
There is a triad of reality that is kicking our arse and is utterly unsustainable: biology , medical science, demographics.. now you can bitch all you want about what’s due you but our society cannot escape these three stone cold bitches of reality..
Biology… aging does not change.. the modern world does not magically stop aging, a 65 year old now is as old as a 65 year old was in 1946.. this simple fact means that raising the age of retirement simply hits a hard wall.. there was a reason we retired nurses off at 55 and later 60… you cannot do a 12 hour shift over a 24/7 timeline on a physically. Mentally and emotionally demanding high stress role tat requires immediate swift decisions and actions.. yes some jobs it’s handy to have a small number of people with age and wisdom.. but the are there for that purpose.we all know they don’t make swift decisions work solidly for 12 hours strait through a night etc.. so we want most of the workforce to be young chargers.. my reality was in my mid 50s I was looking for a new profession because my primary one was for young dynamic chargers.. as an example the idea of acute nurses at 67 is for the birds.
Medical care: now we don’t have a pill to keep you young.. but at vast excessive cost we can keep people alive in ill health for 10-15 years after they would have once died.. and I mean vast cost.. the NHS spends almost 50% of its budget on the over 65s.. a person in their working prime ( 20s-40s) costs the NHS
on average £2000 a year.. by the time you hit 65 it’s £5000 a year but in your 80s it’s £13,000-14,000 a year. We now have an average life expectancy of 82 because of modern medicine.. that’s an extra 16 years over what we had when the system was set up… what is even worse is that although the present population lives longer it actually has far more ill health concerns at an earlier age..
Demographics.. two things have hit demographics.. birth rate being huge.. the total fertility rate of the uk population in 1946 was 2.47 now its 1.47 .. when you add this to the increased life expectancy our demographic has changed massively from when the system was set up.. in fact the over 65 population of 1946 was 5% now it’s almost 20%
So some facts our modern pension system, it was founded on the 1946 national insurance act on the assumption that the present working population would pay for the old.. but it had some major flaws.. 1) it only worked because of a large working population supporting a tiny retired population 2) the present working population would be looked after by the replacement working population as they got old, they would therefore not need to invest in their future pension pot.. this only worked if the pension population stayed small and the working population grew.. nobody would have ever set up the system if they thought average life expectancy would be 82 and birthrates plummeted to 1.47…
So let’s just look at why it’s so screwed and unsustainable and why it’s our life expectancy and birth rate with are destroying our national finances
1946 life expectancy 66-67, over 65 population 5% ( ill health and major ill health killed you)estimated government GDP spend on pensioners less than 3%
1980 life expectancy 72, over 65 population 12% ( ill health and major ill health years not recorded ) estimated government GDP spend on pensioners 7.5%ish
2025 life expectancy 82 0ver 65 population 20%, ill health years 18, major ill health years 11.4, estimated government GDP spend on pensioners 15.4%
Projected 2040-50
life expectancy 83.1, over 65 population 25% , Ill health years 19.4, major ill health years 12.6. Estimated government gdp spend on pensioners 21%
So that’s the reality when the pension system was set up we spent less than 3% of our GDP on pensions and care of the elderly its now 15.4% and by the time I drop dead it will be over 20%..
Increasing the pension age is not the answer because we cannot beat the biology of ill health and aging.. even if we are clever monkeys who can stave off death for 15 years.. we cannot keep the present system because then essentially by 2040 half of all government spending will be on the likes of me as I’m my declining years I desperately cling into life sucking many many 10,000s of pounds out of the system as slowly decay….
So how do we
Make sure those who did not have the opportunity to gain wealth and capital still have a respectable retirement
Make sure we can afford the healthcare for those hyper expensive years of care between 65 and death
Not bankrupt the country and expect our children to pay 20+% of the wealth they produce to look after old fucks when our parents only paid 3-7% to look after our grand parents and we did not may much more to sort our parents out..
So yes you can ‘ but I payed my dues’ ‘it’s my right’ all you want.. it does not change reality and the question is what do we do… and screwing the young harder does not cut it… they pay 50-80k for education we actually got free money to go and do, they pay 10 times the average wage for a house when we paid 3 times ( and we got all the capital wealth from that), they pay more for their food than we did, more for their electricity.. we could run a house and raise a family on one wage.. not have two parents working 50 hour weeks.. they pay more tax than we did, they don’t have the occupational pensions we did… so just blaming the present 20-50 year olds and saying we need to screw them harder is utterly wank.
A lot of people here getting het up over the scribblings of a first-term backbench MP that holds no position in the government. 🤷🏻♂️
I hear that .
Downie is an idiot simple as.
The Peace Dividend delusion is over and we are not safe.
Time to pay the insurance premium for freedom or learn ruzzian
The Peace Dividend delusion has allowed politicians to safeguard their electoral prospects by shifting Defence spending to social provision and even war in Europe hasn’t enabled them to pivot back to Defence.
We bailed out the bankers in 2008 and now its their turn to invest in Defence since their business depends on peace and stability. Lower risk means lower cost for Defence Investment Bonds than standard Gilts.
Thus the 3.5% GDP Defence spending target for 2030, and 2.75% GDP for 2026 are affordable without tax increases. A long term investment plan for national security.
A requirement for a banking licence. Ethical investment means defending people that you expect to profit from.
Over to Finance Ministers to make it happen. Banks must do their Duty or face Windfall Taxes.