Peter Tompkins “knows about things”. He is one of the country’s top actuaries and the inventor of the Tompkins scale that measures university academic standards. He know about pensions and often comments on this blog. He lives in the St Pancras Clock Tower and generously allows us to listen to music and eat in his front room, arranging fine food and fine musicians. He is a man to be trusted.
This week he posted on my linked in group
There is a trust deficit and though twice as many will vote like Peter than like Jeremy and Rishi, there are a lot of us who disillusioned with both major parties. However…
Don’t let the trust deficit stop you voting!
With a week to go till polling day, only 6 in 10 of us are intending to vote for the major two parties. In terms of votes (but not of seats) “other” may well be the largest party. The Government of the past 14 years is struggling to get one in five of us to vote for them!
A breakdown in support for the parties of Government opens the door to those who have more extreme and explicable views. Those views will go unrewarded in terms of seats but they cannot be ignored post election. Not voting weakens the call for change.
The “trust deficit” around both Conservative and Labour parties will need to be narrowed post July 4th and , as Peter so decently puts it, that means explaining things properly to us. Peter is right, he can vote as he likes and living where he does he can vote for Keir Starmer. His vote will count, but all votes count.
My hope is that the trust deficit will make us more not less determined to vote on July 4th. We have genuine choice and there is no such thing as a wasted vote, provided you put an X in just one box!
When you know about things and hear the news you can get very angry about the misleading way it is explained. Pensions and insurance and longevity are subjects we are often misled about.
I am now getting increasingly irritated by the dying days of the Conservatives in the U.K.
Here is the story.
The basic state pension is worth a little bit less than the tax free personal allowance. This means that if you only have that basic pension your tax bill is zero. But that is a calculated tax of zero not that you aren’t subject to tax.
The Conservatives plan to have a special pensioners tax free allowance that keeps their tax free amount higher than the basic state pension.
Other parties are saying that they will tax working people with the same allowance as pensioners (because why should low paid workers have to pay larger taxes?)
So far fair enough. There is a difference of policy here. The Conservatives have every right to set out their plan.
But they are using a sleight of hand to suggest that under them “you will not be taxed on your State pension” suggesting Labour is to introduce a Retirement Tax and make the State pension taxable “for the first time”.
State pension and all pensions always have been taxable and every political party proposes they still will be. Comments by Conservative candidates only serve to confuse as well as mislead.
Although my politics are to the right of centre I am this time going to enjoy putting a cross next week against my Labour candidate in St Pancras – a man by the name of Keir Starmer. I believe I can trust what his team tells me far more than the current lot.