"Pensioners Spend On Cigarettes And Alcohol, They Don't Winter Fuel Allowance"

well I've just been looking at my tweets during the break there and JN says good morning Peter good morning John if Reeves reversed her decision to remove the winter fuel allowance tomorrow it won't make a jot of difference to their ratings and to voter confidence so many saying they have buyers remorse within weeks Carol says uh starmer is costing the country with these protest arrests let's not forget that either when he blames the Tories they did have Co to deal with which made a right mess because they got it so wrong starmer wanted to lock down for longer it shows how wrong he is Angela says with no real opposition this Doom and Gloom from town Downing Street just before winter will tip many people into debt deep depression and affect mental health and another person says everyone I speak to has already made Cuts in their fuel use because their bills are already too high now they are going up again and with no winter fuel aid for pensioners well some pensioners get it some pensioners won't get it people are going to die it will be eat or heat overseas aid needs to be cut today well those are your opinions and let me know them and of course you'll get as many calls on the as possible between now and 1:00 0344 499 1000 but I want to talk to my panel now uh Michael cck is here uh the broadcaster author and a political Guru and Charles Amos who's political commentator great to see you both in the studio Michael I wonder what you think about kir starmer saying things will get worse before they get better is this a deliberate political strategy do you think well it's to soften everybody up isn't it for for what's going the horrors that are going to be Unleashed this Autumn by Rachel Reeves and him um and uh you know the the the fin the country's finances are in a pretty dire State and labor is going is going to have to introduce some new taxes and uh make make some Cuts although the the scope for cuts is a lot less than it was when George Osborne tried the same exercise uh 14 years ago um yeah and and if he's going to do horrible things then the beginning of a parliament just after an election is always the best time to do it rather than later though I suspect he may end up having to do horrible things later as well and blaming the previous government it's a tactic the conservatives did Charles presumably labor will just continue to do this as well yes and I think they're right to blame the previous government if you look at the budget deficit it's £1 122 billion and the interest on the national debt is 43 billion or 46 billion pound the conservatives are to blame for that even before the covid spending the deficit was Rising under Boris Johnson was at about 50 billion pound he had undone the efforts that Joel jborn and David Cameron had put in place in the previous 9 years so I think they are right to blame the previous government and I look forward to the spending cuts that they're going to announce in October the tax Rises I'm not so fond of Michael tell me about your thoughts on the societal black hole that kir starmer is going to be talking about on Tuesday he's talking about the riots he's talking about what he thinks caused them and the fact that he's saying that in the past 14 years is not just about money well I mean the societal we go on all day about that and I think that something that has cropped up crept up on us over many decades the fact that there are there is a large chunk of society that feels unused un has feels they have little purpose in life who uh can't get meaningful employment can't get employment in many cases um and um you know that broadly you know they have nots and these are the people many of them are the people who voted for brexit and who voted for uh Boris Johnson and vote for reform and the middle class Metropolitan Elite of which I'm one uh too many of us have ignored those people uh because they we don't come across them that often they people who didn't go to university uh who live in places with uh you know like Barrow in furnace and heartley pool but even you know places in Kent as well um and we have uh we we've we've we' not brought them to mind enough we've not thought about what we are doing in society we've not been inclusive enough in uh in in in the way in which society's progressed and in ensuring that what wealth is created is is shared more evenly and more equally um Charles I wonder what you make of the conservatives reaction to this this is Richard Fuller who's the chairman of the conservative party I H can honestly say I had never heard of Richard filler before he became chairman of the conservative party just two months in and K ster has taken winter fuel uh payments of 10 million pensions shred billions of taxpayers money the conservatives say on his union pay masters and has now engulfed in a crism scandal after parachuting donors and supporters into top taxpayer funded jobs the soft touch labor Chancellor is squandering money whil fabricating a financial black hole in an attempt to call the public into accepting tax raises and literally leaving pensioners out in the cold what do you make of that I think it's a great shame that the party of sound public finances is attacking the labor party making the tough decisions over winter fuel allowance and other things to bring down the deficit it's not the right thing to do it's very very clearly attempting to score cheap points over the labor party as opposed to putting forward the national interest which is what a proper party would be doing they should be backing the measures that labor is making that are you believe the tough measures as you call them and getting rid of the of winter fuel La for 10 million pensioners is the right thing to do absolutely it's the best thing they have done because people do not need this money they're not I tell you something there are plenty of pensioners who've contacted me who do need the money yeah well I don't believe them don't believe I don't believe them so if you look at the bottom quintile of pensioners they spend 17.8% of their income on hotels restaurants cigarettes and alcohol that's the equivalent of £2,100 for them if you take away the 200 winter fuel allowance from those people they would only have to cut that expenditure which could only be described as Leisure expenditure by 10% when one when one of your text when one of your textas talks about heating or eating I don't believe he's telling the truth and for those tiny minorities there number of people who find that like R just comment Michael well it it's an you know an out of touch Ivory Tower boffins uh response if you don't mind me saying so Charles I mean just to say oh well uh you know lot well pensioners have got lots of leisure interest go on holiday they drink alcohol and so on that may be true in some cases but there are many pensioners who are who have to who are so poor they can only heat one room uh they have to cut back and and they are uh they frequently feel really live in fear of going into debt because of course if you're retired it's you know the prospects of you paying off debt is much harder and so they they re there really is a genuine hardship and we're not just talking about the group of people for whom the winter fuel payments will carry on so I think a little bit more sympathy on your but I'm talking about the bottom 20% of pensioners and it should be remembered that the very very very poorest pensioners the 1 million pensioners who still receive pension credit will carry on receiving the winter fuel around essentially you're saying but Charles Charles you're saying to pensioners who enjoy a or a drink give that up if you can't afford things I mean are you honestly saying people should stop smoke I think everybody so they they should give up any luxury they have Cigar through I'm saying that they should reduce their Ledger expenditure by 10% in fact less than 10% reduce it down from £2,100 to £1,900 that's not much to ask people are not entitled to force other people to give up the fruits of their labor so they can go on holiday or they can have a pint of beer down the pup people should stand on their own two feet and this is part of making people stand on their own two feet ideally we should even have a state pension system everybody should have a private P sorry sorry you shouldn't have a state pension system no not at all people should support themselves on their own TWP with a private pension what about disabled people should they just fan for themselves ideally charity should support those people or they are you saying sorry Charles are you saying there shouldn't be state benefits for people who are disabled yes why what what's your possible Logic for people who can't quite literally stand on their own two feet people who through no through no fault of their own are a situation where they need a hand out from the state to survive people are entitled to their private property to the fruits of their labor and it is wrong for the state to forcefully take that private property from them just as we do not accept that Charities such as Oxfam can theve from individuals to support starving Africans in that continent neither should we accept that private individuals should have their private property stolen from them by the state okay to support people such as disabled people in their lives I'm sure there'll be hardly anybody in this country who takes your view that uh the society taxing Us in order to help those people who are bet who are worse off who are disabled or maybe who are elderly who can't work um uh I think there is an a consensus in society that that's how we do operate and we should operate uh and the argument is really about at the margins do we do it more do we do it less but to have a a sort of fre for all Society where people who are disabled uh who are elderly and so on basically have to go to the wall unless they happen to have they're lucky enough to have a charity that comes along and helps them that is not our world in fact it's not anybody's world on this planet as far as I know there is a natural human tendency for people to want to for people to be generous uh to to think I can give up some of my income I can give up a large amount of my income um and and they they do it through the state because that's a more efficient way we need to go to your break but I want word from Charles just before the break go ahead if people want to do that they can give to charity but it is wrong to threaten people with prison if they don't give up their income to those individuals a free Society is one where we respect people's private property the state doesn't do that I I quite like a society where we respect people who can't look after themselves let us know what you think about what Charles is saying and what Michael is saying and what I'm saying for