For 3.7 million older women, the choice in this election is between Labour and injustice
WASPI protesters: For these women in Norfolk it seems clear that voting Labour is their only opportunity to get justice.
When you’ve had tens of thousands of pounds taken away by the Conservatives in a historic injustice that they won’t correct, voting Labour for £58 billion in compensation is a no-brainer.
It might even cost Boris Johnson the general election.
Mr Johnson has exhibited a callous indifference to the plight of the so-called WASPIs (Women Against State Pension Inequality):
WASPI woman: You stole my pension
Boris Johnson: I’ll be honest – there’s nothing I can do for you, please leave me alone. pic.twitter.com/80dqQYWLAU— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) November 23, 2019
Don’t be mollified by his tone; it is simply an attempt to mask the fact that he is quite happy to plunge millions into poverty by stealing the pensions they have spent decades funding and to which they are entitled.
Labour, on the other hand, is offering compensation.
The party agrees with the WASPI women that the decision to change their pension age without giving them proper notification was a ” betrayal” that “left millions of women with no time to make alternative plans – with sometimes devastating personal consequences”.
The party’s manifesto has promised to “work with these women to design a system of recompense for the losses and insecurity they have suffered”.
And it says: “We will ensure that such an injustice can never happen again by legislating to prevent accrued rights to the state pension from being changed.”
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has added that Labour would pay the money as a “contingency”, comparing it with compensation the Conservative government had to pay to mesothelioma victims after losing a long-running legal battle last year.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have attacked Labour’s plan, saying it is unclear how it will be funded.
For the WASPI women and the 3.7 million people who have lost money due to the pension age rise, this makes it impossible to vote for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
These are people who have lost between £15,000 and £32,000 as a result of a decision to change their rights without letting them have any choice in the matter.
Even if they have been lifelong Tories or Liberals, that makes the choice obvious.
The Tories and Liberal Democrats are offering them worse than nothing; they are pushing these women towards poverty and debt.
Labour is offering them a way to avoid it.
Even if they have spent a lifetime opposing Labour, it is in their own interests to support that party this time.
Source: General election 2019: Labour pledges payouts to pension age rise women – BBC News
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Whilst I agree that this is a great move by Labour and in my opinion is the right thing to do, there are others elsewhere on the net expressing negative views, saying that Labour haven’t costed it, or that it’s somehow unfair because they’re not compensating JSA claimants for the freeze ( imposed upon them by the Tories, I reminded them!) and despite the fact that Labour have said they will scrap UC, suspend Sanctions, and trial Basic Income, compared to the Tories offering more of the same, more suffering and misery, greater poverty. Never underestimate the sheer stupidity of the electorate, many of whom are unfortunately either not very intelligent, politically illiterate, or very gullible, which is potentially a big problem, unless such people are hopefully a minority.
I am one of those women. I don’t think the government care that many older women have to become carers for husbands, parents, and sometime grandchildren. The fact that they do this saves the government a fortune, and then if they leave work because of it they are still classed as working, it is classed as “full time unpaid family work” therefore they can’t claim anything and disappear from jobless figures. On top of which, despite legislation, women are STILL paid less than men and therefore any private pensions are worth less. And yet the government claim that they are “equalising” the pensionable age in the name of “fairness”. Apparently I would get £29,000 from a Labour government, but even if I wasn’t owed anything, I would still vote Labour – they are the real party of fairness and equality.
I, too am one of these women and like Kateuk I would vote Labour regardless of this particular pledge.
I have to also agree with Trev about the “sheer stupidity”, political illiteracy, or however you want to see it, of the electorate. You’d think, as you state, that this could cost Boris the election wouldn’t you? But, believe it or not, there are some women, supposedly desperate for reparation posting negative comments in the various Pension Campaign Groups’ sites in response to this Labour proposal…. From they “couldn’t possibly vote for Corbyn”…the ubiquitous “where will the money come from?” and conversely “I don’t care where they get the money from – it’s not enough”. ..to “I’ll believe it when I see it but I’m not voting Labour” and “Why should I trust him, he didn’t do what he promised last time” proving that yes, there are some who in late middle age still don’t understand the fundamentals of how our political system works Honestly, I despair.
Shouldn’t it be men being compensated since they were the ones discriminated against for decades with a higher retirement age despite dying younger?
Oh sorry I forgot, we live in an inverted reality where women are oppressed because they receive more lenient sentences for the same crimes, get better prison conditions, get priority in housing, have more spent on them in healthcare and cancer research, get placed in positions ahead of men because of diversity quotas and affirmative action, account for less than 5% of work place deaths compared to men over 95%, get preference in divorce courts and custody courts, suffer less violence and live longer.
Look, women should be treated better IMO, they are the ones who bare the child and continue the species, but modern day feminism is obscene and has nothing to do with women’s rights, it is just another leftist identity politics power grab.
It’s a point of view I suppose, but not one I could endorse.
Women suffer less violence? I wouldn’t have thought so. Personally I think it would be fair if everyone got their State Pension at the same age, 60 would be good. Or even 55. But 67+ is hopeless, many of us won’t live long enough to see it. But if it was 60 for men and 55 for women I would find that acceptable, I certainly wouldn’t feel hard done by or outraged at the “unfairness” or “inequality”. It just is what it is, but to hell with working ’til we drop.
If men felt discriminated throughout the last century because they received a state pension at an older age than women then they could have complained and campaigned for change. But they didn’t. One of the reasons the system has worked all this time is precisely because it was accepted that men tend to marry slightly younger women and it meant they could enjoy retirement together. The men were happy with that it would seem.
Apart from that, this is an issue of too much change implemented over too short a period, with no formal notice given by the DWP until very near to the time the changes were due to start (if at all) and very little useful information put into the public domain. I mean, a six year increase, shouldered by some, who saw their contemporaries just a year or two older retiring at 60 – wouldn’t you be pissed-off? A six year increase implemented over a period of less than 10… Something which govt has since acknowledged was too harsh and ruled that any further increases have to be implemented at the rate of a one year increase over 10 years. In line with the way that changes to private pensions have been legislated.
You see, the women affected by this rapid increase to their SPA are actually the ones suffering from the over zealous “modern day feminism” of which you complain. They didn’t benefit from the current day equal opportunities which are now taken for granted. Life for them in the 60, 70s, 80s and beyond has been very different. But they, for reasons of austerity if truth be told, are the ones now expected to accept and embrace this new “equality” of which they were never a part. This really has nothing to do with promoting feminism and all to do with the complete opposite – government thinking women are a soft touch whose welfare and concerns are irrelevant. As George Osborne famously said to a group of businessmen some years ago – it was the one easiest and biggest money-saving move he could ever have made….