Difficult Decisions?? Who Gets to keep their Heating Allowance?
In the News
Question Time fans didn't hold back as they vented their frustration over the government slicing the winter fuel payment for all but the least well-off pensioners, as the show travelled to Ashton-under-Lyne for its latest instalment of heated debate.
In a controversial moment from the show, an audience member shone a light on the bitter situation facing thousands of elderly citizens who are set to lose out on the £300 winter fuel payment for easing the financial strain of heating their homes. They highlighted that MPs, with their annual salaries of £91,346 plus expenses, can claim up to £3,500 towards their own heating bills, claiming if these politicians skipped the perk, more than 6,700 pensioners could instead receive the winter fuel allowance.
I am flaberghasted by the fact that people aren't writing to the MP's about this as it is totally absurd!
I remember in the past the MPs could vote on whether they get a pay rise and of course pretty much all of them supported that motion to be paid more. Now I think its a so called independent body that decides but its been setup by MPs and unsurprisingly MPs pay has gone up considerably with this independent body that has been setup by MPs themselves. Now if MPs were assessed by their performance they would each probably have to pay billions to tax payers as they are worse than useless most of the time. If they were paid by what tax payers thought was fair it would likely be less than they currently get and without most of the expenses they claim for. Instead they have a main wage approaching a £100k and expenses approaching £200k plus get paid for anything they can do on the side like TV interviews etc.
I totally get the country is in a financial mess and is pretty much bankrupt and heading towards a IMF bailout at some point and I'm not saying its wrong to means test winter payments but I feel in such a situation MPs themselves should also have less paid to them. I just find the type of people that become MPs whatever the party pretty disgusting often weirdly perverted, claiming as much money as possible, huge egos, clueless what they are doing, not really understanding the problems of the economy, no strategy, no forward planning, just micromanaging failure while paying themselves huge money.
BonzoBanana Yes, exactly.
They should be looking at what they scam off the top and if that was reduced the country would be far better off!
Perhaps we should look to a system whereby they let us know what will get for a pension, as they do now, and we, the public, then tell them what we think they are worth paying!
However, the real crux here is that they have no shame by making the pensioners lose the WFA when they are claiming far more themselves. Disgusting!
tumblespots Why can't we means test MPs so if they are earning more than the minimum wage or have savings over 6,000 or whatever the limit is they can't claim expenses. Obviously not a serious suggestion but I just get annoyed with their attitude to themselves. It's like they think they deserve all these perks because they do such an important job but it seems like after each government be it Conservative or Labour, government debt has gone up, we lose a huge amount of industry, more assets have been sold, the country is in an even worse financial state and this has been happening with every government since the end of the 1970s. Yes of course joining the EU is the main factor to this but we are out of it now and need a proper industrial policy and a realistic trade policy to repair our country. We need to go into repair mode.
I find it quite disgusting if MPs are receiving heating allowance while taking it away from vulnerable elderly pensioners that don’t have a choice.
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