I agree entirely, I was raised in a family with such restrictions
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MY state pension is £177 a week.
that would be the absolute maximum. It’s certainly not the average.
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putting all that aside, people contributed to NI in good faith that they would get a full state pension. Successive governments didn’t put that aside in a massive pensions fund, but instead rely on current year taxation to fund all the pension payments. The government have raided pensions and short charged pensioners for years until the triple lock. The triple lock is probably next in line.
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What worries me more than the fuel allowance is the talk of getting rid of the Freedom pass.
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On it’s own probably not, even though one of the largest coal fired power stations in Drax is sat upon at least 300 years worth of coal but has been converted to running on bio mass, or wood chippings imported from Canada?
Three coal fired stations have been closed down and demolished in Yorkshire. Thorpe Marsh, Eggborough and Ferrybridge, they were closed down prematurely in the rush to achieve net zero and build thousands of wind turbines and fields full of solar panels, and now massive banks of lithium batteries to supply limited power to a couple of thousand houses for one hour…Where do you suppose the money is coming from to finance these projects?
Sunak had given permission to re-commission the North sea oil and gas fields, Starmer has since closed the project down in an attempt to achieve Net Zero…Just madness!
it would take years to get that up and running. We should be focusing on nuclear, but not sure what Starmer plans for that
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The SMR installations are the way to go, but the orders need to go in now to avoid even more delays.
France has 56 operable reactors and combined they are the country’s largest generating capacity.
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Our electricity is probably nuclear generated in France. People who worry about the risks have no problems living or visiting French resorts and cities. We are right next door so any problem will be our problem too. It’s not a forever solution but it’s the best option until science finds a better way. Lithium isn’t clean energy by any means.
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Its an interesting question, why did governments rely on in-year taxation? My guess, and its only a guess, is that when NI was introduced it was first only to cover people when they could not work. Then it was hugely expanded in 1948 to also cover pensions and the NHS. I’d think that this meant for the first years of operation all the money taken from people’s earnings (and no doubt more) went towards paying for all those things that year. And the same the next year, and the next, and the next. So there never was a chance to create that fund.
I’d still point to rare periods of excessive tax funds (north sea oil, or profits from huge rises in global markets, selling off state enterprises) that these should have been used to create such a fund.
The general cost of living is higher in the south. Allowances are the same north or south but money goes further in the north.
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If you take housing costs out of the equation - is that true? Supermarket prices are the same, fuel prices are the same. If you’ve free public transport and own your own home - aren’t all other costs pretty much the same.
If money goes further in Yorkshire it might be for reasons other than what things cost…
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Because when pensions were introduced life expectancy wasn’t what it is now.
We all know Thatcher used the selling of nationalised industries as a one-off plug to bring the economy back from the 70s deficits. Even I remember how much she paraded her economic success. It was short lived of course.
I don’t know how other European economies manage their pension pot. I’m pretty sure we won’t be the only ones who haven’t saved up for it.
So anyone who has it in for big business doesn’t understand we are totally wrapped up in their success because we have to finance the living from the current year successes of the economy and that includes growth, large corporations, security and stability of the banking & financial sector. Our attraction for inward investment.
Financial stability = security of food, energy and other supplies. We are part of the system. There is no way to leave the merry-go-around.
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We have spent time in Yorkshire over the years staying with friends we met up with while holidaying in Jersey. They have spent the same amount of time here in Surrey. The last comment I made was agreed on by us all,
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Sorry to go off topic… 
But it takes over ten years to build a nuclear power plant Annie, how does that stack up against drilling for oil and gas?
Wouldn’t it have been better to decommission the old coal burning stations once the nuclear plants were up and running?
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Those took 130 months. The UK is building Hinkley Point C – two reactors that started construction in 2018 and 2019. Their projected timeline is to be online in 2027 and 2028, respectively (which is several years later than originally planned).
both could take ages and cost a lot of money. They were talking about smaller nuclear modules instead of one big one. The SMRs LD mentioned. But it doesn’t look as though they are going anywhere soon. I think it’s down to a lack of money, skills and energy (groan)
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7965/small-modular-reactors-in-the-transition-from-fossil-fuels/news/199872/eac-raises-concerns-that-the-governments-direction-on-nuclear-smrs-needs-clarity/
Successive Governments have known for decades about energy insecurity, particularly with the decommissioning of nuclear plants at their end of life. They kick it down the road for the next government. Apparently we have only 14 more years of Nth sea gas at current consumption levels. That’s the other reason we need nuclear. Fossil fuel volumes used to power nuclear are miniscule vs the energy generated by nuclear itself.
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but check how many are being decommissioned around the same time.
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This was how your power was generated at 10:00am this morning Annie.
The 10% bio mass is Drax, the orange are combined cycle gas turbines, and from France down, we are buying it from various other countries…
From a 2022 report - years of kicking the can down the road
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This Christmas’s No 1.
