vivweb01blog

  I first published this blog in late 2023 when the realisation that vaping was harmful to teenage lungs was becoming more widespread, and the authorities were finally waking up to the fact that they needed to do something.  All the evidence that has emerged since then has tended to confirm our suspicions - i.e. that long-term vaping does impair lung function, and is likely to be doing so irreversibly. We should thus only be permitting the use of vapes strictly as an aid to stop smoking, and only for as long as is necessary to 'kick the habit'. If we fail to restrict availability, and don't manage to convince our kids as to the dangers, we will be condemning a whole generation to breathing problems in their middle and later years, with the serious burden that will put on our NHS as a result. And it's not just the UK either, the problem seems to have spread worldwide , with 100 million plus now vape-addicted, no less tha 15 million of them teenagers. In UK, there are alr...

Warning to low Electricity and Gas users:  If you are anything other than a high user of both fuels, don't be tempted by offers from your supplier to fix your tariffs now. These are coming in thick and fast on the back of the latest price cap rise, with OFGEM  actually 'co-conspiring' with suppliers to try to get you to fix. The rationale being peddled is to "...protect yourself against future price cap rises...". If you do succumb to the temptation, however, you'll lock yourself into a contract lasting at least a year with exit penalties, and won't be able to take advantage of any No- or reduced-SC tariffs that appear this winter....companies want to avoid subscribers switching to these tariffs, since they know they could lose money as a result, and are using fixing as a deterrent, so beware. One item of note to surface very recently is that EDF are now offering a fixed rate product with a reduced SC in a desperate effort to get you to fix. This suggests ...

  Editor's note: Please see the recent update at the end of this text for analysis of the Winter Fuel reversal announcement in in June 2025, and its implications.....You may also be interested in a more recent update on the recent rumours that Reeves may introduce means testing for the State Pension itself in this November's budget....  ----------------------------- Now that the dust has well and truly settled after Reeves’ so-called ‘Halloween Nightmare’ budget in October 2024, let’s take a look at what actually happened to pensioner benefits…and what we might expect to happen in future. We all know about the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment for the majority of pensioners – you would have had to have been living on Mars for the last 3 months not to. Although he obviously thinks it's 'done and dusted', Starmer is not yet out of the woods on that one; although he caved in to the threat of defeat from his back benchers he refused to restore the universal benefit, ...