Helen, all this talk of crypto billionaires buying influence, the conservatives have been bribing boomers for years!!
Your party’s membership is older, whiter, more male, more southern and more ABC1 than the country. Conservative voters are concentrated among the over-65s. Faversham and Mid Kent fits a lot of that picture: older than average, around 94% White, high home ownership, fewer graduates, Leave-leaning. That is the coalition you still speak for- boomers.
Official DWP figures show roughly 55–57% of welfare spending goes to pensioners. Pensioners are about a fifth of the population, The state pension alone is the single biggest item. Working-age disability and sickness spending has risen, but it is not the majority of the bill, it’s actually tiny compared to senior spending.
You have spent months attacking Starmer Labour’s winter fuel means-test and presenting yourself as the defender of pensioners. Now you are on the cuts bandwagon, Fine.
But be honest, the cuts you keep demanding land on working-age sick and disabled people — the same generations who have already faced higher housing costs, student debt, weaker pensions and higher lifetime tax rates — while the triple lock and the bulk of pensioner spending stay off-limits, millions of millionaires whom profited from previous bribes like North Sea tax cuts, right 2 buy etc etc etc.
If the argument is “we cannot afford the welfare bill,” the largest slice is surely the one to cut first?. If the argument is fairness between generations, the generation that locked in the current settlement is not the one being asked to take the hit.
Your seat has a large older vote, I get it!!! But That does not make the rest of the country disappear.
Everyone should face the consequences of required cuts, even pensioners.
#meansteststatepensionnow
