I don't feel bad for hoping older generations can assume some responsibility for the mess this country is in.
Westminster Politics 2024-2029
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
I don't feel bad for hoping older generations can assume some responsibility for the mess this country is in.
Boo hoo! poor you ….go cry else where.
No thanks, I'll keep criticising them here. Feel free to use the ignore button.
Actually he has a point. The prior three elections the over 65's mostly voted conservative.
How is that a controversial opinion? The older generations vote Conservative and supported Brexit. Not all obviously, but more did/do than didn't.
Ffs now you hate your elders as well
Ffs now you hate your elders as well
I could provide you a list.
This is true, whenever a line is drawn (in particular by government) on anything to differentiate people, those on the 'right' side of the line breathe a sigh of relief, those on the 'wrong' side mumble in their beer.....if they have any!!
I think there will be more 'line drawing' to come, as long as the choices overall are balanced, then Labour will get the benefit of the doubt, overall. If not, then they do have large majority and will have to use it!
Ever thought there's a reason why older generations might vote Tory?
It might have something to do with the fact that they lived thru the basket case Labour Governments of the 1970's which not something we should ever repeat
Yes, and our Generations have lived through 14 years of a shambolic Tory Government which is something that should never, ever be repeated. Didn't Labour only have 5 years in charge in the 90s anyway?
You basically sound like a Liverpool fan bringing up something that happened 50 bloody years ago as a reason to continue to shoot yourselves in your own feet, year after year, decade after decade.
I don't disagree but the last 14 years have nothing on the 70's goverments - those Labour governments led to Margaret Thatcher who is the architect of the current housing problems that the country faces now - every Labour government since has been Tory lite and I doubt the current one will be any different
You are saying Wilson and Callaghan for five years was worse than imposing an austerity programme that hollowed out the welfare state, cost thousands and thousands of lives, reduced life expectancy and added £1.6 trillion to the national debt, Brexit which is costing tens if not hundreds of billions of pounds to the economy, and a response to a pandemic which led to nearly 250,000 deaths?
At what point might we expect said generation to learn from their mistakes?
Also, the reason is clearly nothing to do with the political landscape of 50 years ago, and much more to do with the Tories essentially bribing that age demographic with financial assurances well above what the younger generations will ever be afforded in return for their vote, while the print media (and increasingly platforms Facebook) - who the over 65s are the main consumers of - feed them right wing propaganda and outright lies every day of the year.
To them it's not necessarily a mistake, as @decorativeed says, they've also been 'bribed' with money and guarantees, ultimately people mostly vote in their own self-interest and even more so when it comes to money, most older people are not rich, they may own their home but they mostly don't have lots of cash in the bank
Not wholly, the unions are as much to blame, but those events led to Thatcher, her policies curbed the unions almost to irrelevancy, allowed people to buy homes they could never have otherwise bought - for a lot of people, now the old generation, like it or not did extremely well out of the Tories and haven't forgotten it
As for Brexit, the fault lies with both sides, yes the older generation tended to vote for it but a lot of the younger generation didn't even bother to vote, if they had it wouldn't have happened
He’s keeping the triple lock, which is the engine of improved pensioner lifestyles.
If there’s any group more adept at complaining they don’t get enough from everyone else, I’d like to know who.
This is why it’s easy to just say ‘Fcuk em’. Selfish and childish people.
I’d not put it that sharply, and the idea of those people feeling financial strain at 60+ and not 25-45 feels cruel. But they’ve taken their fill and want to keep it all. It’s an impossibility.
They made hay while the sun shone, letting the homestead crumble. Now the roof leaks and they’re expecting people with none of the things they have, to fix it for them.
You appear to know feck all about a lot of subjects ….just guess work
how convenient, owning a million pound asset doesn’t make you rich when you are old, but it does when you are young?
If the two assets were bought for the same price, you'd probably have something approaching a point there.
i can’t help but feel more pensioners would be able to afford to pay their heating bills if they spent less money on tripe on toast and hot bovrils.
And subscriptions to Reader's Digest.
Yeah, I too have little sympathy for the pensioner/boomer generation. They have consistently voted in their own interests - as is their right - but it has been at the expense of the younger generations. Brexit is the classic example; the right to work, study and live abroad all over Europe, which they have enjoyed for all/most of their adult lives, and they very much voted to pull the ladder up behind them and deny that same right to others.
The conservative policies have consistently favoured the pensioners because they are the biggest conservative voting bloc and - annoyingly - the ones who actually bother to go out and vote. It is very much a symbiotic relationship. The good news (for the rest of us) is that the Conservative party have pretty much alienated every other demographic in the country, and the legacy pensioner vote is dwindling year on year for obvious reasons.
The conservative policies have consistently favoured the pensioners because they are the biggest conservative voting bloc and - annoyingly - the ones who actually bother to go out and vote. It is very much a symbiotic relationship. The good news (for the rest of us) is that the Conservative party have pretty much alienated every other demographic in the country, and the legacy pensioner vote is dwindling year on year for obvious reasons.
"I think we will have to increase taxes in the Budget," Rachel Reeves told the News Agents podcast.
BBC
I don't think she'll stop there..
BBC
I don't think she'll stop there..
Well I never said any such thing and most properties don't come close to that amount anyway/
I'm a 'boomer' technically, I've never owned my own house, I could never afford one, of my friends who did buy one I don't know of any that live in a house currently worth even half of a million quid/
There many reasons why housing is unaffordable but you can break it down in to 4 main causes, Thatcher's right-to-buy, which is still in place today in England, Brown's pension raid which turned houses in to investment opportunities rather than homes, that's 1 Tory and 1 Labour policy, demographic changes, there are more single-person households thus higher demand which resulted in many family homes being split up in to flats, and lastly not enough building
So the pensioner with an unearned £1m asset isn't rich, that's what you are saying, right?
20% of people over the age of 65 are millionaires, according to the ONS. And that was 5 years ago, we can assume it's higher now. Source
Lots of reasons why housing is unaffordable, but people have been speculating on property since way before Gordon Brown.
Also, the biggest reason of all - very low interest rates triggering asset inflation, and bad ideas like stamp duty holidays and govt subsided mortgages (instead of building more homes).
As your source points out, that is a very misleading statement.
Nobody is saying feck the pensioners, but the country isn't in hock to the pensioner vote anymore and that means their interests are just one set amongst many again, which is as it should be.
It says it's more complicated of course, but the reason I'm posting it is to counter balance the perception that pensioners are still an unusually poverty striken group compared to others (of course, some pensioners are) and therefore pensioners are an interest group whose state benefits should be fenced off from the same kinds of funding pressures as everyone else.
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If the pensioner cashed that in they would be rich. If the property that has skyrocketed in value since they bought it 30 or more years ago is still needed for them to live in (as is most likely the case), then they are not rich on that basis alone, no.
If you're sitting on a paid off 1m asset, then you're pretty damn rich.
They're rich in the way the ultra rich are often rich: in assets, not cash. They have easy access to cash if they need to, more or less whenever they want.
Not if selling it to free up that cash requires you to spend a similar amount of money in order to continue have a roof over your head. In that circumstance, the nominal value of the property doesn't have an impact on your life in any way, and can still mean you stuggle with regular expenses like shopping and utility bills.
Yes, in theory, someone in their 70s living in London who bought a house there when the prices weren't mental could sell up and relocate to somewhere cheaper like Lincolnshire, and live very comfortably. But we all know why most people do not feel willing or able to just up sticks and leave their friends and family behind so they can liquidise their ungained assets.
A 1m home is either huge or in an extremely attractive location, so they don't habe to spend a similar amount unless they choose to. They can also do what the ultra rich who want to keep their assets but still have access to cash do: take up a loan with your appreciating asset as security. Is Elon Musk not rich?
This situation is mostly a fantasy, by the way. It's extremely rare for someone to have a paid off 1m home without a lot of stuff like stocks, bonds or cash.
It's not that rare.
Take Altrincham or Chorlton, for example. Rows of terraces with houses that regularly go for £600-700k currently. 40 years ago, when those areas weren't really considered to be anything anything other than suburbs of Manchester, they were affordable by regular people and priced similarly to other parts of Greater Manchester. Now they're the desirable, hip places to be for younger people with decent jobs.
The survivors of the 70s and 80s in these areas are sitting on a potential pot of gold, but where do you propose they move to in order to get at it? Older people are tied to their networks and routines, and are generally not up for starting new lives elsewhere away from all that.
Yes, it's that rare, with people that rich they usually have more in other assets than in property. There's a lot of variation, of course, but having everything, or anything close to everything, in property is close to unheard of.
This is true, many pensioners no doubt consider themselves to be asset rich/cash poor. Most I suspect want to pass on their 'assets' to their families and hope not to have to release assets to obtain cash funds, e.g. by downsizing or other such methods, before they 'pop-their-clogs'.
Government often interferes with such plans, @Red in STL identified, e.g. Margaret Thatcher's selling of council houses was intended to produce a nation of stake holders, the down side was the loss of council houses. Gordon Brown's actions on Pensions spawned the increase in using houses as investments rather than homes.
'The road to hell' is paved with good intentions. More thought has to be given by governments to basic needs, especially facing the future problems of, mass migration, control/depletion of natural resources, and the ever present threat of climate changes.
I hope that this government goes for the longer term and sets out at least a ten year strategy on housing, NHS, education, control of natural resources and links this to the economic growth needed to support it against the back ground of climate changes. Using its once in a lifetime massive commons majority to take through, force through if necessary, all that is needed to action this strategy.
We may never get another chance, 'to do the right thing'.