UK general election 2024, who to vote for?

[Fietsrad]

I benefit from the pension triple lock, are the tories trying for my vote?

[alma.freya]

I benefit from the pension triple lock, are the tories trying for my vote?

Yes, it is an attempt to limit the loss of their core voters to the Reform Party UK Ltd.

edit: Ah, right on time:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... form-party

Farage has held back from running as a candidate for the Reform party, ... but on Wednesday he extended an olive branch to Sunak in an interview with the Sun, telling him: “Give me something back. We might have a conversation.”

Sunak rejected the idea on Wednesday, despite making a huge push to win over voters tempted by Reform with policies such as tax cuts for pensioners and the reintroduction of national service.

Farage dismissed the idea that he wanted a peerage or honour as “rubbish”, but hinted he did want something else from the Conservatives.

“What are they going to do back for me?… I’m not asking them for anything other than – I’ve done them some huge favours over the years as a party. Give me something back. We might have a conversation.”

Farage has previously said he would like to be British Ambassador to the United States but I'm not sure what Rishi could offer Farage considering the chances of the Conservatives forming a government are non-existent based on current polling, and even if Reform pull all their candidates and all their voters instead vote for the Conservative, they'll still not have enough for a majority.

[GaryC]

I benefit from the pension triple lock, are the tories trying for my vote?

I think all parties have pledged to keep the triple lock (TL), for what it will be worth over the next 5 years! I say that because the current legal requirement is to increase the state pension each year by the increase in average earnings over the previous 12 months, normally measured over the 3 months to July in the preceding year. While we had mega-low inflation and equally low wage increases following austerity, meaning the "2.5%" element of the TL kicked in a few times, there was a real advantage to having the TL. But that said, since the new state pension was introduced in 2016, that has only happened twice!

If the TL had not existed since 2016 when the new state pension came in, and had the current government not statutorily overridden the earnings element in 2022/23 (another cynical move), the pension would be only 2.3% lower than it is now - interesting, don't you think, given the hype around the TL! Especially its "unaffordability"!

One therefore has to ask where things are likely to go, now that inflation and pay rises are more "normal". If inflation and pay rises both exceed 2.5%, which seems likely for the foreseeable future, then the only benefit of the TL is if CPI exceeds the increase in average earnings, and only then, if it is significantly higher. Is that likely? And even if CPI and earnings increases are below 2.5% the difference is also likely to be minimal! So, the TL is something of a red-herring in my view.

However, what IS nothing more than a cynical attempt to buy the grey vote is what the Tories are calling "Triple Lock Plus". This is no more than a promise to increase the personal tax allowance for those in receipt of the state pension by the same % as the pension increases. This will keep the personal allowance higher than the full new state pension but will ONLY benefit people who have UK-taxable income in excess of the current personal allowance, so people with workplace pensions and a full new state pension. If you are resident in Germany then it seems unlikely to be of any, or not much, benefit, unless, perhaps, if you receive a military or other Government Service pension that is also taxable in the UK.

One newspaper worked out that this "vote-buyer" will only save a typical person who is actually affected, the grand sum of £14.60 by 2028 when the personal allowance is due to become unfrozen.

So, the current bunch have tried to buy the votes of the young by messing with National Insurance to the detriment of those on pensions and now they are trying to buy the votes of those on pensions by messing with the personal allowance to the detriment of those who are below pension age. It's more than cynical!

The answer should have been to leave NIC as it was and to remove the freeze on the statutory annual increase in the personal allowance put in my Sunak and extended by Hunt. If they had not frozen the personal allowance, it would already be £15,300 and by the time it unfreezes (absent further legislation) it would probably be worth £18,000 as the overridden law requires that the personal allowance must increase by CPI each year without intervention... The grandiosely named Triple Lock Plus would then be a total irrelevance!

Rant over...

[GaryC]

Someone on a different forum suggested the Triple Lock Plus idea could breach age discrimination laws, which I found interesting given the McCloud issue with public sector pensions in the UK, where the government was found to guilty of just that when they increased the public sector pension age for everyone other than oldies like me who they "bought out" by exempting us from the change - from memory, it was anyone over 50 at a certain date.

Anyway, a person with great knowledge of the UK public sector and, I think policy-making environment, wrote the following in response to a comment that it is no different to the two levels of minimum wage in the UK:

"I think it is rather different. To avoid being unlawful, a policy must be a legitimate aim, and enacted in a proportionate way to justify direct or indirect discrimination against a protected characteristic (which includes age).

A lower minimum wage for young people meets the legitimate aim of ensuring there is not high youth unemployment arising from a high cost of employment, and it is done in a proportionate way by having a minimum wage but set at a lower level. That all seems quite reasonable, although you would want to check statistics on youth unemployment, etc, when reviewing the rates to ensure it all remains proportionate.

Whereas this policy is rather more difficult to demonstrate a legitimate aim for the inherent age discrimination. It is not sufficient to simply assert something is legitimate (which is what the judge in the McCloud case said the govt did around the 2015 pension reforms and offering protection for older workers), it must be shown to be a legitimate aim by offering some evidence and justification.

Here the aim appears to be to ensure that pensioners reliant solely on the new State Pension do not pay income tax. This in itself does not seem to be a serious issue however, given that many reliant on the old State Pension, those who have deferred and those entitled to a protected payment will be solely reliant on their State Pension yet still pay tax due to their State Pension exceeding their Personal Allowance.

The practical impact of the policy is to give all pensioners with taxable income between £12,570 and around £125,000 a higher net income due to a reduction in their income tax. This on its own does not seem to be a legitimate aim, given this is of no benefit to the poorest pensioners, and pensioners as a whole are less likely than working age individuals to be in poverty. You could also achieve much the same effect by setting the rate of State Pension to deliver whatever higher net income you think is required for pensioners after they pay a very small amount of tax on the amount of new State Pension in excess of the Personal Allowance.

Given the aim of the policy is to ensure that those relaint solely on new State Pension don't pay tax, there would be a compelling argument that the higher allowance should be tapered back to the standard amount above a particular level of income, eg, £20,000 as there is no justification to have a higher tax allowance for pensioners with very high incomes given the stated aim of the policy. Introducing this sort of arrangement would significantly strengthen the argument that if the policy is a legitimate aim, it is being enacted in a proportionate way to meet the policy aims.

There could be arguments advanced around the issue of the single person rate of Pension Credit being marginally below the rate of new State Pension and uprated by the same metric. Arguments could be put forward about the undesirability of sending tax bills to low-income pensioners at the end of the tax year, and more pensioners experiencing K Tax Coding notices on their private pension income. However, none of these are put forward as aims for the policy to date, and most would be addressed by simply applying Tax Coding and deducting tax from State Pension in the same way as other pension income.

A key question would be around risk of challenge - it is unlikely any organisation would bring forward a challenge as there would be a severe reputational issue for any company, charity, lobby group, etc, to be taking the govt to court with the probable outcome being making pensioners pay more tax. So it would likely be individuals bringing any challenge, and that is too high a bar for most - especially with no direct gain to whomever brings the challenge - so the policy may well go unchallenged."

Personally, I think there is a lot of merit in what they write, though I do wonder whether there would be a greater risk of challenge from the working population through a group litigation - after all, the McCloud challenge came from the younger population in the public sector.

The answer, of course, is simple - ditch this idiotic suggestion and unfreeze the personal allowance now, rather than 2028/29...

[alma.freya]

How about we keep the Triple Lock in exchange for national service for the over 70s.

It'll help with the loneliness epidemic, give the pensioners a sense of purpose and direction, and if we also produce some Dad's Army style reality TV shows it'll provide entertainment for the rest of us.

[Keleth]

The national service bollocks is just the torys trying to win back the same people who voted for them in the last GE.
Personified by older spiteful people who think its a disgrace that youngsters may actually have it a bit easier than they did in their day,the same morons who thought that the UK was bigger than the EU and are still shocked that they´re not. These voters have deserted the torys and gone to Reform because the Torys aren´t big enough bigots for them.

[yesterday]

Th worc

Seems almost taboo, these days

Or forgotten about

[Lorelei]

Though I'll be voting in the European elections, I haven't tried to exercise a vote in the UK. I don't think people who've been out of the country for so long should have a say in how the UK is governed (even if we have opinions), especially if they're not paying taxes there. I seem to remember Margaret Thatcher garnering support from a lot of ex-pats living in apartheid South Africa when they were allowed to vote in UK elections and that didn't seem fair to me back there either.

[aolangs]

I have always voted LibDem although in my constituency that vote is kind of wasted because Richmond N Yorks is about the safest Tory seat ever. This time as you say, LibDem feels even more pointless. I might go Green. As I say, unfortunately I am effectively disenfranchised in my constituency.

@kiplette, take a look at this:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/t ... r-BB1kO1Cq
it's the argument in favour of tactical voting!

[kiplette]

Thanks for that, aolangs.

Sadly it looks like I'd have to vote sodding Labour to help kick Mr Sunak off his chair. All very unpalatable. Time to consider the options still, I guess, unlike the Euros where kid'3 has announced that we are going to vote at 4pm so we better make our minds up already

[PandaMunich]

unlike the Euros where kid'3 has announced that we are going to vote at 4pm so we better make our minds up already

Just do the test at the Wahl-o-mat, it will tell you which party's programme is closest to your views: https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/europawahl202 ... n_app.html

[Auntie Helen]

Yebbut after I did that I ended up with “Letzte Generation” as my highest result. I’m a bit too old and boring to glue myself to a runway.

Glad to see that the AFD was my lowest score though.

[john_b]

If, like me, you have a vote based on your last address in the UK, this is a useful website that analyses each constituency and projects the forthcoming election.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

The number of predicted seats on their current poll of polls is very heartening - CON 75, LAB 475, LIB 61, REF 0, GRN 2, SNP 16, PLAID 3!

(Although it also shows how ridiculous First Past The Post is)

[alma.freya]

If, like me, you have a vote based on your last address in the UK, this is a useful website that analyses each constituency and projects the forthcoming election.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

The number of predicted seats on their current poll of polls is very heartening - CON 75, LAB 475, LIB 61, REF 0, GRN 2, SNP 16, PLAID 3!

Oh the boundaries have changed in Bristol and my new constituency Bristol North West is a much closer split between Lab and Con. I'm only a few meters outside of Bristol Central which is predicting a Green party win.

It seems Lab will still win Bristol North West comfortably, so I could still vote Green, but it'll be a wasted vote.

Look at this, they completely cut me out of Bristol Central! Me! How could they do this. Who drew this monstrocity?!

2.JPG (150.2 KiB) Viewed 1502 times

[john_b]

I was living in St Andrews, Bristol Central will be an interesting one to watch...

[alma.freya]

I was living in St Andrews, Bristol Central will be an interesting one to watch...

Yes I am confident Bristol Central will elect a Green MP. The voters know they don't need to vote tactically because:

- Labour are all but guaranteed a majority in parliament
- Even if the vote is split between Labour and Green, there is still zero risk of a Conservative being elected in this constituency

[aolangs]

If, like me, you have a vote based on your last address in the UK, this is a useful website that analyses each constituency and projects the forthcoming election.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

The number of predicted seats on their current poll of polls is very heartening - CON 75, LAB 475, LIB 61, REF 0, GRN 2, SNP 16, PLAID 3!

(Although it also shows how ridiculous First Past The Post is)

thanks for the calculus, johnb. i wonder if reform ltd only polls 2.1% and gets no seats the media will reduce farage's airtime accordingly.

(i'm not seriously expecting this, sadly)

[alma.freya]

If, like me, you have a vote based on your last address in the UK, this is a useful website that analyses each constituency and projects the forthcoming election.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

The number of predicted seats on their current poll of polls is very heartening - CON 75, LAB 475, LIB 61, REF 0, GRN 2, SNP 16, PLAID 3!

(Although it also shows how ridiculous First Past The Post is)

thanks for the calculus, johnb. i wonder if reform ltd only polls 2.1% and gets no seats the media will reduce farage's airtime accordingly.

(i'm not seriously expecting this, sadly)

He'll win Clacton so don't expect him to go anywhere for the next 5 years

[john_b]

I guess it's still too early for anyone to have received their postal ballot?

I'm definitely in the system (I diligently renew my right to vote annually) and the bristol.gov.uk website states that postal ballots will be sent out by first class post on June 17th (next Wednesday).

Slightly ominously they state "If you live abroad you can appoint a proxy to vote on your behalf, as there may not be enough time for postal votes to reach you and be sent back before the poll closes." However it worked out last time, even though they somehow managed to get my PLZ wrong...

[dstanners]

Haven't got the postal vote through yet, but Dorset CC sent me an email to let me know it's on the way.

One thing which is concerning me with this election, is how it is being represented as a foregone conclusion: Starmer landslide.
Typically, older people (typically Tory) are more likely to vote. Also, the constituencies have been Gerry Mandered to assist the Tories. Whilst that clown Farage might take a few votes off the Tories, it's easy to forget that UKIP (effectively Reform these days) took even more votes off Labour.
Once you add in voter-apathy, from what appears to be a commonly held misconception that there is no real difference between the Tories and Labour, it is quite possible to see an outcome where Labour massively under-perform, in terms of winning seats, compared to polling.

After watching the cricket last night (good win for England) I caught the end of the debate on ITV. The Welsh and Scottish parties came across well, whereas I think Labour are already banking on those seats for a big majority. Additionally, even the Lib Dems seem to be having something of a comeback (people gradually forgiving them for the Clegg/Cameron disaster/betrayal). All in all, I can see a lot of close three-way splits, rather than straight swaps from the Tories to Labour.