Starmer's vision quest

[Beebo]

I have little sympathy with the Waspi women.
60 was a joke. Especially as women live longer than men.
My wife’s pension age was 60 when she started work. It’s now 68.

 

[Pinno718]

I have little sympathy with the Waspi women.
60 was a joke. Especially as women live longer than men.
My wife’s pension age was 60 when she started work. It’s now 68.

The only thing I can add is that many women take career breaks to have children. Sometimes, long career breaks.

 

[Dorset Boy]

The only thing I can add is that many women take career breaks to have children. Sometimes, long career breaks.

Whilst they are entitled to receive Child Benefit they get NI credits so are not missing out on State Pension accrual, unless they never return to the workplace after raising the kids.

 

[Psamathe]

They weren't given advanced notice in writing that their pension rights were changing. Some of them retired from their jobs only to find no pension for another five years and no income. The relevant Tory minister at the time told them there's no upper age limit on modern apprenticeships and they should go and retrain to be plumbers.

In the real world who retires without first checking whattheir pension system will provide them? Takes litterally a few minutes and apparently can be done online - personal statements. Does anybody really retire then start checking? Bit like jumping off a wall and only check on how high the wall was when you're on the way down.

From 15+ years before my retirement age I was checking on my potential benefits and discussing how I could change the situation. DWP were very easy to deal with, no long phone "We value your call but are very busy ..." for ages. On the phone with DWP one check I made a throw-away comment"I can't do anything to change that anyway" and they said "Actually since you got that info we've moved into a new tax year so now you can <x> which will give you and extra <y>".

Ian

 

[Psamathe]

The only thing I can add is that many women take career breaks to have children. Sometimes, long career breaks.

Whilst they are entitled to receive Child Benefit they get NI credits so are not missing out on State Pension accrual, unless they never return to the workplace after raising the kids.

Which makes it more likely such people would be checking their entitlement somewhat before retirement.

Ian

 

[monkers]

You're not a very good mind reader.

I won't be taking any lessons from you.

 

[monkers]

I have little sympathy with the Waspi women.
60 was a joke. Especially as women live longer than men.
My wife’s pension age was 60 when she started work. It’s now 68.

Their complaint was not that the pension age had changed.

 

[monkers]

Not sure you quite grasped the need to be concise there. Then people might pay more attention to you.

Although tbh I'm not clear what point you're trying to make: can you summarise in one sentence. Bonus points for not sounding arrogant and condescending.

Sure thing Stevo just for you, in just one sentence and in crayon.

National Insurance contributions are payroll‐based premiums levied by HMRC under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act, collected into a discrete, legislatively ring-fenced “contributions account” entirely separate from general taxation revenues and administratively segregated so that neither HM Treasury nor the Exchequer can raid or reallocate them for unrelated spending, while DWP uses the accrued funds solely to establish contribution records, determine entitlement to specific contributory benefits—most notably the State Pension but also certain job-seeker’s allowances, bereavement payments, and other targeted social security measures—and calculate the precise pension amount based on qualifying years of contributions (including Class 3 voluntary top-ups and credits for caregiving or unemployment), all of which is governed by rigid statutory rules on calculation methodology, indexation, and uprating, publicly documented in detailed but dense guiditional protection for late-1970s cohorts to plan their retirements—so yes, NI is not “just another tax,” it’s a non-hypothecated levy ring-fenced by statute to fund defined social benefits, tracked meticulously against your National Insurance number, calculated in pence on every pay slip, and payable by employers and employees alike to support tomorrow’sance on GOV.UK, laid out in multiple Pensions Acts (notably 1995, 2007, and subsequent amendments) and clarified in explanatory booklets sent to contributors at key threshold ages, yet still obscured by bureaucratic jargon and buried in PDFs rather than boiled down into a simple infographic or live FAQ widget until recent years, meaning anyone demanding you reduce this to toddler-friendly bullet points is either trolling or doesn’t grasp that tens of millions of workers, many on zero-hour contracts or juggling multiple roles, depend on nuanced insights about qualifying thresholds, earnings bands, and trans pensions, unemployment coverage, and bereavement support, with full legal protection against diversion into the consolidated fund, because if you thought you could conflate it with Income Tax, you’ve clearly never read a single Parenting-style government leaflet or Hansard transcript, and that, dear friend, is why I’ll in future refuse to compress complex ideas into a neat, one-liner for your amusement.

​

 

[Pinno718]

Roll over Stevo, you're totally out classed. How do I put it in simplistic terms so that you understand? Let me see... I know:
Stevo = Accrington Stanley.
Monkers = FC Barcelona.

I'm offering you some assistance and a way out of this vacant loop of blind, arrogant contradiction.

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/autistic-adults

 

[CXRAndy]

View: https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1953576887734685790?t=JIwnAGp9vsC508w9fbJmuw&s=19

 

[BoldonLad]

Sure thing Stevo just for you, in just one sentence and in crayon.

National Insurance contributions are payroll‐based premiums levied by HMRC under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act, collected into a discrete, legislatively ring-fenced “contributions account” entirely separate from general taxation revenues and administratively segregated so that neither HM Treasury nor the Exchequer can raid or reallocate them for unrelated spending, while DWP uses the accrued funds solely to establish contribution records, determine entitlement to specific contributory benefits—most notably the State Pension but also certain job-seeker’s allowances, bereavement payments, and other targeted social security measures—and calculate the precise pension amount based on qualifying years of contributions (including Class 3 voluntary top-ups and credits for caregiving or unemployment), all of which is governed by rigid statutory rules on calculation methodology, indexation, and uprating, publicly documented in detailed but dense guiditional protection for late-1970s cohorts to plan their retirements—so yes, NI is not “just another tax,” it’s a non-hypothecated levy ring-fenced by statute to fund defined social benefits, tracked meticulously against your National Insurance number, calculated in pence on every pay slip, and payable by employers and employees alike to support tomorrow’sance on GOV.UK, laid out in multiple Pensions Acts (notably 1995, 2007, and subsequent amendments) and clarified in explanatory booklets sent to contributors at key threshold ages, yet still obscured by bureaucratic jargon and buried in PDFs rather than boiled down into a simple infographic or live FAQ widget until recent years, meaning anyone demanding you reduce this to toddler-friendly bullet points is either trolling or doesn’t grasp that tens of millions of workers, many on zero-hour contracts or juggling multiple roles, depend on nuanced insights about qualifying thresholds, earnings bands, and trans pensions, unemployment coverage, and bereavement support, with full legal protection against diversion into the consolidated fund, because if you thought you could conflate it with Income Tax, you’ve clearly never read a single Parenting-style government leaflet or Hansard transcript, and that, dear friend, is why I’ll in future refuse to compress complex ideas into a neat, one-liner for your amusement.

​

I thought the last word was several pages ago? 😂

 

[monkers]

I thought the last word was several pages ago? 😂

Last word yes, but I had to sentence Stevo - he demanded it.

 

[briantrumpet]

In the real world who retires without first checking whattheir pension system will provide them? Takes litterally a few minutes and apparently can be done online - personal statements. Does anybody really retire then start checking? Bit like jumping off a wall and only check on how high the wall was when you're on the way down.

From 15+ years before my retirement age I was checking on my potential benefits and discussing how I could change the situation. DWP were very easy to deal with, no long phone "We value your call but are very busy ..." for ages. On the phone with DWP one check I made a throw-away comment"I can't do anything to change that anyway" and they said "Actually since you got that info we've moved into a new tax year so now you can <x> which will give you and extra <y>".

Ian

Quite so, given it's one of the biggest financial leaps most people will ever take. Even more so if I thought I was getting preferential (i.e. legally dubious on equality grounds) treatment whilst all political discourse was about raising all pension ages.

 

[monkers]

In the real world who retires without first checking whattheir pension system will provide them? Takes litterally a few minutes and apparently can be done online - personal statements. Does anybody really retire then start checking? Bit like jumping off a wall and only check on how high the wall was when you're on the way down.

From 15+ years before my retirement age I was checking on my potential benefits and discussing how I could change the situation. DWP were very easy to deal with, no long phone "We value your call but are very busy ..." for ages. On the phone with DWP one check I made a throw-away comment"I can't do anything to change that anyway" and they said "Actually since you got that info we've moved into a new tax year so now you can <x> which will give you and extra <y>".

Ian

Are you saying that women aren't in the real world?

Let's remember a few contemporaneous details. The government introduced the Gateway service in 2001. According to CoPilot, only 49% of UK households had home computers at that time. Most were on dial up networks. Only 30% of women were on-line at home, with younger male users being most prevalent. Of the 30% of women on line, there was a higher proportion of younger users, and a lower proportion of older users. Before accessing a Gateway account you'd first need to know that the service existed.

If you were not being sent post by HMRC, then you wouldn't be receiving the necessary details to check your account, or even know that the Gateway account existed.

This portrayal of middle aged women as being too silly, feckless, living under a rock, or not living in the real world is not an unusual world view of married men leaving the chores to the other half while they pratt about on computers.

So yes, the distinction about those with presence in the real world and those in the cyber world is well made, but with the reversed conclusions.

 

[CXRAndy]

Are you saying that women aren't in the real world?

🤔