Present Tory government more left wing than Blair's Labour ?

[Justin Smith]

When Charlton Heston (who was a Freedom marcher in the 1960s) died I can remember reading this in Wikipedia :

By the 1980s, Heston supported gun rights and changed his political affiliation from Democratic to Republican. When asked why he changed political alliances, Heston replied "I didn't change. The Democratic Party changed."

I remember being dubious, but, with the passage of time, I am more of the view he is right. In fact the whole of society and politics is constantly moving in a more Left wing and authoritarian direction. I reckon the present Tory administration are more Left wing and authoritarian than Blair's Labour were 25 years ago !
All the Woke stuff is possibly the best example but not the only one by any means. I was reminded of this when I got yet another letter from "The Pensions Regulator". I am a micro business with only two part time employees but, as I understand, it I have to arrange a work pension for my staff and offer it to them (though they can turn it down ?). And I have to keep re-offering it to them every few years ? I think this policy was introduced under a Tory government ? But I thought Tories were about personal responsibility and making it easy for business to thrive and create wealth ? So how exactly does forcing all businesses (even micro businesses) to set up work place pension schemes fit in with either of those two values ? Quite apart from anything if the government want people to take out additional pensions surely the state should be doing that, not shuffling off the responsibility onto businesses ?
There are too many other similar examples to mention, but that one will do for starters.
I used to vote Labour and Lib Dem, but no longer. Just like Heston, my view it is them who have changed not me.

 

[kulture]

The example you quote is an attempt to move the burden of pensions from the state to employers and employer schemes. Very much a Tory policy.

 

[Justin Smith]

The example you quote is an attempt to move the burden of pensions from the state to employers and employer schemes. Very much a Tory policy.

It isn't the basic pension though is it ?
It's effectively just an additional pension.
Why should that be forced onto employers to provide ?
To shuffle that onto employers is, to me, anything but pro business, and it certainly is not about personal responsibility, as in the personal responsibility of the employee to decide what they want to do as regards their own pension. At best it's nanny state, at worst it's on the way to authoritarianism : we will decide what's good for you, like the state is doing for more and more stuff, everything from Nett Zero and Covid lockdowns to the World of Wokeness and beyond.
And this is a Tory government !
TBH if it weren't for their obsession with immigration and Brexit (I am a Remainer) I'd like Reform UK's policies more than any of the the others.....

 

[kulture]

Well, you do have a perverse view on things. It is done to try to ensure that more people are getting more than the basic pension and thus less people get pension credits. So it will cost the government less money.

 

[Clodbuster]

The example you quote is an attempt to move the burden of pensions from the state to employers and employer schemes. Very much a Tory policy.

Your pension is your problem, look after it yourself instead of relying on others to give you everything. Sort yourself out - stop whinging when your taxes go up and up because of your views on a myriad of issues you insist the Government supplies.

 

[kulture]

Your pension is your problem, look after it yourself instead of relying on others to give you everything. Sort yourself out - stop whinging when your taxes go up and up because of your views on a myriad of issues you insist the Government supplies.

I never said that I had a problem with the idea of encouraging people to sort out their own pension.
I don’t see that as socialism.

 

[MikeJ]

The Pensions Act which covered auto enrolment was introduced in 2008, by Labour.

I think you don't understand how the state pension system works. When we pay our NI, it doesn't sit in a pot for us to draw down at a later date. Today's pensioners are being funded by today's tax payers. When we start drawing our state pension, it'll be funded by the tax payers of the day. The issue we have is the balance between pensioners and tax payers is altering rapidly. The only way round this is to get people to put money aside for their old age.

We could pay more into a state pension fund now, and hope it's still there when we retire, but I'd rather not trust the government to look after it.

 

[MikeJ]

BTW, I don't disagree that auto enrolment has its faults. We always offered a pension scheme far in excess of what the minimum the government asked us to offer. However, we still had to set up a scheme, and give people the option of keeping their existing arrangement or moving to a much worse one. We then have to write to them every two years, and try not to give them pension advice (as we're not qualified/regulated to do so). However, trying to design a system that covers all situations is very difficult.

 

[Justin Smith]

Well, you do have a perverse view on things. It is done to try to ensure that more people are getting more than the basic pension and thus less people get pension credits. So it will cost the government less money.

I am quite aware of why it is being done.
All I am saying is it is an example of yet more regulation and interference in our lives "for our own good". The fact it is accepted as "normal", and in fact my opposition to it apparently marks me down as "perverse", supports my contention that society and politics is becoming more and more Left wing and authoritarian as time marches on.

 

[Justin Smith]

The Pensions Act which covered auto enrolment was introduced in 2008, by Labour.

It sounds more like a Labour policy so that would make sense but I thought I started having to sort all this stuff out for my employees sooner than 15 years ago ?
Am I wrong ?

 

[MikeJ]

No, it didn't come into force until later. Also, it was staged, so smaller companies had to comply later than larger companies.

 

[Justin Smith]

BTW, I don't disagree that auto enrolment has its faults. We always offered a pension scheme far in excess of what the minimum the government asked us to offer. However, we still had to set up a scheme, and give people the option of keeping their existing arrangement or moving to a much worse one. We then have to write to them every two years, and try not to give them pension advice (as we're not qualified/regulated to do so). However, trying to design a system that covers all situations is very difficult.

Same here. My two employees had always had a pension more generous than the one they are trying to foist on us, so it was basically a load of extra work for nothing.
It certainly is not a business friendly policy.
In fact I have a letter from the pension regulator in front of me threatening me if I do not "re-enrol and re-declare". And, unsurprisingly, there is no phone number on that letter, it's obviously far too much trouble for them to actually talk to all these people they are bossing about and requiring extra work from.

 

[Justin Smith]

No, it didn't come into force until later. Also, it was staged, so smaller companies had to comply later than larger companies.

Ah so the Tories didn't stop it then, it then becomes arguable if it's a Tory policy or not !

 

[MikeJ]

I don't know if they opposed it when it came in. Given it was a coalition until 2015, I doubt they'd have been able to reverse it anyway.

 

[Justin Smith]

In fact I have a letter from the pension regulator in front of me threatening me if I do not "re-enrol and re-declare". And, unsurprisingly, there is no phone number on that letter, it's obviously far too much trouble for them to actually talk to all these people they are bossing about and requiring extra work from.

At the risk of side lining this thread into "Auto Enrolment Pensions" (it's actually about far more than that) the Pensions Regulator's phone number is 0345 600 70 60. I phoned them, did not have to wait that long to get through, and did it all over the phone. It needs doing gain every three years.....

 

[kulture]

I am quite aware of why it is being done.
All I am saying is it is an example of yet more regulation and interference in our lives "for our own good". The fact it is accepted as "normal", and in fact my opposition to it apparently marks me down as "perverse", supports my contention that society and politics is becoming more and more Left wing and authoritarian as time marches on.

It’s a matter of interpretation. I see removing a burden from the government and forcing people to look after themselves as a Tory policy. You see the nanny state forcing rules and regulations on people to force them to look after themselves as a socialist policy.

In reality it is a bit of both. If people were not heavily encouraged to get pensions then the state will be heavily encouraged to support these people when they retire and don’t have enough money to live.

 

[MikeJ]

I am quite aware of why it is being done.
All I am saying is it is an example of yet more regulation and interference in our lives "for our own good". The fact it is accepted as "normal", and in fact my opposition to it apparently marks me down as "perverse", supports my contention that society and politics is becoming more and more Left wing and authoritarian as time marches on.

I guess it's hard to draw a line between "government nannying" and "taking reasonable care of your citizens". Once you decide you're going to look after people once they retire, you have to fund it. As life expectancy increases, the bill for doing that continues to go up and has to be funded some how. In this case, we can draw the conclusion that in future the value of the state pension is going to drop, relatively and therefore has to be topped up by personal money. Or, it's going to be means tested and if you've got your own resources you can expect less from the government. Unpalatable as it may be, the real answer is to increase the pension age further, as we're all living much longer and therefore the amount of time the state needs to fund continues to increase.

 

[MikeJ]

The real answer is probably the Universal Basic Income. But it's unlikely we'll see that in our lifetimes.

 

[Chris Coulson]

The real answer is probably the Universal Basic Income. But it's unlikely we'll see that in our lifetimes.

If you search google for UBI UK Trials, it's happening soon, in Jarrow and Finchley!

 

[MikeJ]

Yeah, I knew that, but I can't see it really being rolled out nationally.

 

[IanSuth]

For a bit of context there are a large number of people who want to pay as little tax/ni/pension as possible and have as much disposable as poss now to p*ss up the wall. They do this in the expectation that on their meagre incomes there is no way they will ever squirrel away enough to make any appreciable difference to their life in terms of owning a house or having a decent pension pot.

When i worked in recruitment i came across these via our sister company who dealt with warehouse staff, weekly. They are the people who were working as warehouse workers through ltd companies/umbrellas to keep as much as possible of their gross pay, they just see this as the same as rich people using "tax doges"

They live in the expectation that if they live that long there will be a safety net as good as anything they could pay for with savings/investments so why bother. The rise in property prices/rent has if anything increased the number of them.

That is why any govt HAD to introduce some form of legislation forcing people & their employees to pay into an actual pension pot separate from NI which as explained above is non hypothecated.

It originally came in as stakeholder pensions which were meant to be basically a simple low cost pension scheme suitable for people who changed job often or were paid little where the scheme charges would be controlled and not eat up all the funds - as far as i remember a lot of providers pulled out and the NEST scheme is sort of a mk2 version run by the government as the number of Stakeholder options shrunk but they then also made it compulsory to pay into a scheme (one of the excuses used before was that it wasnt financially viable for a lot of small firms to set up schemes themselves)

 

[Justin Smith]

It's not just about pensions though is it ? I just gave that as an example I was annoyed about at the time I was putting on this thread.
Political parties are becoming more Left wing (and in my view more authoritarian) over time.
It used to be thought that people just became more right wing as they got older, my contention is it that may be they don't, it's society and politics which just becomes more Left wing but many people stay the same.
Charlton Heston was right !

 

[Newchodge]

They live in the expectation that if they live that long there will be a safety net as good as anything they could pay for with savings/investments so why bother.

I couldn't disagre with them. How do you think someone earning £10,000 (soon, probably, to be reduced) can afford to save into a pension?

 

[kulture]

It's not just about pensions though is it ? I just gave that as an example I was annoyed about at the time I was putting on this thread.
Political parties are becoming more Left wing (and in my view more authoritarian) over time.
It used to be thought that people just became more right wing as they got older, my contention is it that may be they don't, it's society and politics which just becomes more Left wing but many people stay the same.
Charlton Heston was right !

ROFL
If you think that a government that wants to deport asylum seekers to Africa and arrest people for demonstrating in a way they don’t like is becoming more left wing then I am surprised. That and voter id are very much right wing policies.

 

[Newchodge]

ROFL
If you think that a government that wants to deport asylum seekers to Africa and arrest people for demonstrating in a way they don’t like is becoming more left wing then I am surprised. That and voter id are very much right wing policies.

Perhaps, more fascist is a better description?

 

[IanSuth]

I couldn't disagre with them. How do you think someone earning £10,000 (soon, probably, to be reduced) can afford to save into a pension?

I don't

I remember in the 70's my great nan lived in a council old people home, she had her own little studio flat with a warden on call and when she got too infirm for that she moved into my grandparents house for the last 18 mths of her life (a 2 bed semi where she lived in the front room) - that was again a council rented property with my grandparents (he was serviceman/publican/taxi driver and she was a cook/bookkeeper) doing a bit of piecework at home in their retirement to make ends meet (removing Parker pen clips from the electroplating frames after chrome plating)

I just can't see how that set up could be replicated today - they would have been in penury (my great nan refused to go into hospital as the building was the old workhouse)

 

[Justin Smith]

ROFL
If you think that a government that wants to deport asylum seekers to Africa and arrest people for demonstrating in a way they don’t like is becoming more left wing then I am surprised. That and voter id are very much right wing policies.

>>arrest people for demonstrating in a way they don’t like<<

That is authoritarian (unless they are people blocking the highway, they should be removed and prosecuted sharpish) we are agreeing on that, but why is it Right wing ?

>>deport asylum seekers to Africa<<

Not a policy I particularly support, but it's a rarity in being right wing.
There are other policies and attitudes and rules in society that more than offset that in my argument that society is becoming more authoritarian and Left wing.
What happened during the pandemic ?
What they are trying to force on us (without anyone voting for it) to try and achieve "Nett Zero" ?
Even telling us what to think with all this Woke nonsense ?
Basically "we know what is best for you and for society, and it doesn't really matter much to us if you are onboard with it because we're doing it anyway", that is basic left wing authoritarian stuff.

 

[Newchodge]

>>arrest people for demonstrating in a way they don’t like<<

That is authoritarian (unless they are people blocking the highway, they should be removed and prosecuted sharpish) we are agreeing on that, but why is it Right wing ?

>>deport asylum seekers to Africa<<

Not a policy I particularly support, but it's a rarity in being right wing.
There are other policies and attitudes and rules in society that more than offset that in my argument that society is becoming more authoritarian and Left wing.
What happened during the pandemic ?
What they are trying to force on us (without anyone voting for it) to try and achieve "Nett Zero" ?
Even telling us what to think with all this Woke nonsense ?
Basically "we know what is best for you and for society, and it doesn't really matter much to us if you are onboard with it because we're doing it anyway", that is basic left wing authoritarian stuff.

Changing the law so that the police decide what is a permissible protest. WITHOUT it going through parliament? Fascism.

 

[IanSuth]

Changing the law so that the police decide what is a permissible protest. WITHOUT it going through parliament? Fascism.

They have literally changed "serious" to "not minor" by statutory instrument.

You now have to prove a negative to be able to protest.

Have a picket line and put "honk to support" - non minor disturbance - Stop the picket

Pro Brexit rally - might inconvenience people going about normal life- Prohibit it

Anti Brexit rally - might inconvenience people going about normal life- Prohibit it

It will literally give carte blanche to the police (or local crime commissioner) to stop ANY protest they dont agree with because it is impossible to show a protest will only cause at most a minor inconvenience to anyone. Before hand it could only be stopped in advance by the Police showing it would cause a serious disturbance to people going about their normal business

 

[Clodbuster]

They are stopping a MINORITY of people interfering with the majority REGULARLY - this is not a one-off organised mass demonstration where a mass of people make their viable feelings evident on a single occasion. This is the same few people making a regular nuisance.

 

[IanSuth]

They are stopping a MINORITY of people interfering with the majority REGULARLY - this is not a one-off organised mass demonstration where a mass of people make their viable feelings evident on a single occasion. This is the same few people making a regular nuisance.

Yes - but as several Plod have said, they actually have the rights to stop them disrupting stuff under current laws they just aren't using those rights.

The change in the definitions is a massive thing - have you EVER been on a demonstration for anything in your life, if so it is likely under this "re defining" that it could have been stopped under this new definition. This is one of those "i may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it moments".

A law change now to stop "stop oil" (who will just change their tactics to something else equally annoying) is a law change which is there to be used for other purposes in the future. Taking a stupidly OTT "what if", what if a govt decided to take a 50% stake in every UK business, wouldn't you want to protest, maybe have a rally outside Westminster - sorry, but only a few would be allowed to go and they couldn't shout, as more or noisier people might cause a more than minor inconvenience for MP's going about their normal business so the protest could be banned

 

[Clodbuster]

No not personally, my son demonstrated in 1997 against Mugabe making himself president for life. He was one of the few whites amongst many blacks. He was arrested and given a good hiding for his troubles. I had to get a lawyer to get him out. Many blacks fared much worse.
Don't talk to me about Fascism - all you have here are police trying to do their job as best they can without lefty muppets labelling them and keep things moving for the MAJORITY.

 

[Newchodge]

No not personally, my son demonstrated in 1997 against Mugabe making himself president for life. He was one of the few whites amongst many blacks. He was arrested and given a good hiding for his troubles. I had to get a lawyer to get him out. Many blacks fared much worse.
Don't talk to me about Fascism - all you have here are police trying to do their job as best they can without lefty muppets labelling them and keep things moving for the MAJORITY.

I was always taught that the way to judge a society is by looking at how it treats its minorities. Locking them up for expressing an opinion is not acceptable.

 

[Clodbuster]

Depends on how often they make themselves objectionable and if they feel they have the right to ignore majority opinion.

 

[Newchodge]

Depends on how often they make themselves objectionable and if they feel they have the right to ignore majority opinion.

But it is OK to ignore minority opinion?

 

[Clodbuster]

If it is not the Majority yes BUT they are still able to have their opinion and not demonised for it. They have the right to form a political entity and try to change that opinion - hang on, there's the Green Party - not doing that well is it?
Do they have the right to continually interfere with other peoples daily requirements? How about stopping an injured person hospitalisation?

 

[thetiger2015]

It benefits the government if the police don't intervene in certain, publicised demonstrations. It's also very convenient that press seem to appear at the most obscure demonstrations being held by 10 or so people. Why would that get on mainstream news?

The current government isn't left or right. It is designed to confuse, bamboozle and have no direction. Therefore nobody can accuse them of being either way, because it's your personal take on whether they are left or right based on your experience with them or what you see in your bubble. This is all planned and orchestrated. The news channels and papers twist and turn to stir up tension and create scenarios that many of us will never experience ourselves but, through the power of television and social media, we think we have experienced them.

It's clever isn't it. Social engineering?