vivweb01

  Since Rachel Reeves axed the winter fuel payment in July, there has been much angst amongst pensioners not entitled to Pension Credit over her plans to remove other essential benefits they are currently entitled to, such as free prescriptions and the concessionary bus pass.  These additional restrictions would be likely to apply to the same cohort (i.e ca 10 million of the 11 million over the current state pension age of 66), and would include up to 2 million of the poorest in our society, many of whom live alone and have no relatives to provide assistance. Means testing using anything other than Pension Credit entitlement would be time-consuming and costly, since a new method would need to be defined, agreed  and implemented, then validated to ensure it didn't discriminate against specific groups on grounds of age, race, gender, etc., etc. The DWP database, which is already 'primed' with an 'entitlement list' for Pension Credit, already provides an easy option f...

This blog will be updated regularly in the run up to the Autumn Statement at the end of October.  I'm planning to ask a series of key questions on 'X' (Twitter in old money), then attempt to answer them myself  in this blog,  in more detail than X will allow.  Why ? It's important that we all keep this Government's 'feet to the fire' to reduce the risk of losing any more of our precious and hard-won benefits.....  See also my recent blogs for more details on this topic: https://vivweb01.blogspot.com/2024/07/labours-war-against-pensioners-where.html https://vivweb01.blogspot.com/2024/09/update-on-pensioner-benefit-changes.html Here's the first offering for the pot: 1)   DWP have identified 880,000 pensioners who they 'believe are entitled to Pension Credit'.  Why don’t they do the decent thing and simply award these folks the benefit, without forcing them to fill out a 230-question form ? Comments: The answer is almost certainly money....and to an...

  Amidst all the current government-inspired gloom we’re currently experiencing, a ray of hope shone out in the retail sector in late September with the news that the last of the Issa brothers had quit his executive role at ASDA. Before we roll out the bunting, however, we should remember that the ‘terrible twins’ as they became known after their takeover in 2021, both retain significant involvement and influence in the business as non-executive directors, and one of them remains a part-owner. This is because the EG group, in which they both still have a major financial interest, continues to own ASDA. Zuber Issa sold his stake in ASDA in June ’24 but remains a non-exec. director of EG. Mohsin Issa stepped down as CEO of ASDA in September, and is now sole CEO of EG group. Stuart Rose has now assumed his responsibilities as ASDA’s CEO. As I predicted in a previous blog , from a financial point of view, the Issas’ intervention in ASDA’s fortunes has been little short of disastrou...