Taxpayers can’t afford Waspi compensation, says Keir Starmer

40 comments

1. If they wanted free handouts they shouldn’t have overwhelmingly voted for brexit.

2. While I agree the WASPI’s shouldn’t get compensation (imagine the uproar if they paid out ten BILLION because some letters weren’t sent, this is the lesser of two evils), the way it’s been handled and previously promised is pretty bad.

3. >In 2019, Angela Rayner, now the deputy prime minister, told the BBC: “They [the government] stole their pensions…we’ve said we’d right that injustice and within the five years of the Labour government we’ll compensate them for the money that they’ve lost.”

   This is what happens when a party leadership has decided to shift so drastically from the position of the previous leadership. Virtually every notable Labour MP was supportive of WASPI compensation, some even actively campaigned for it! But now because of Rachel Reeves, they have to do a 180 degree turn on this, breaking the promises they made 5-10 years ago, and paint themselves as untrustworthy in the minds of the public. I think this just fuels further distrust between the public and the political class, and that’s awful for us all.

4. It’s not even that we can’t afford it. The state has no obligation to compensate people who did not plan their own retirements.

5. They want compensation for negative aspects of gender equality?

6. “The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign group say that 3.6 million women born in the 1950s were not properly informed of the rise in state pension age to bring them into line with men.”

   They must have been living under a rock then, it was more than adequately publicised, talked about, on the news, in the papers, etc.

7. Imagine the comments if a Tory prime minister said this 😂

8. So both inequality when it suits and equality when it suits the Waspis? And they expect everyone else to pay it? Lol. 

9. If you’re currently in the first decades of your career you’re also getting steady increases in the retirement age in future years with similar levels of notice.

   I imagine that few people who are say, 18-45 will have any sympathy because their state pension ages are slowly getting older and older.

   Nobody likes it happening but pretending you had no idea for a quarter of a century? Come on.

   Also many people in their 20s and early 30s were given very little notice to plan their lives and futures when tuition fees tripled.

   That has a massive effect on financial and life planning.

   The wealthiest and most entitled generation arguing for years that they deserve compensation for ignorance of a milder version of how badly younger generations are getting screwed is laughable.

10. People saying Covid is the reason we can’t afford this and therefore labour get a pass on this subject…we wouldn’t be able to afford it pre covid either. They have played politics with this issue and now they’ve been found out. It’s worse than the Brexit bus sign.

11. Even if we could, we shouldn’t pay.

    – A taxpayer.

12. They won’t pay this as it will open the flood gate for all the Gen X males who set pensions up for retirement at 65, only to have it move to 67.

13. How much student loan debt could be wiped out for the same amount as these women are demanding?

14. Labour actually making some intelligent decisions lately, maybe they aren’t as bad as how they started

15. Ignoring the rights and wrongs of the matter this sets a dangerous precedent of the government ignoring the ombudsman. Could be the start of a very slippery slide

16. Why should the state reimburse these women for their ignorance. Because that is what this is. I know my pension age today may not be my pension age in 30 years time and will plan accordingly.

17. And that’s right. The generation that says we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and work hard, don’t really want to put the effort in and ensure they have the correct money for retirement.

18. I think genuine justice should involve giving them compensation but then scrapping the triple lock.

    Yes they had pension expectations, the triple lock was never part of it and it’s a benefit current taxpayers pay for that they never did.

    That corrects two breaches of the social contract in one fell swoop.

19. But we can afford to keep all of our uninvited guests?

20. I don’t expect a huge amount of sympathy for this cause… would guess the majority would prefer £10bn go towards something more productive than compensation.

    The politics is quite funny though. It’s easy to make lots of calls whilst in opposition, but kind of different when you actually hold the purse strings.

21. He absolutely right that we can’t afford it and the obligation is tenuous at best.  

     Which just goes to show how much of a slippery liar he is. No facts has changed, the only difference is now he’s actually on the hook for the country’s finances. 

     People should have listened to the Labour left when they told us how much of a lying liar he was. 

22. It can afford to sent £billions to Africa to help countries to fight climate change, and several more £ billions trying to prevent Vietnamese people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. People might not agree with the women receiving compensation but this country gave away £ billions a few weeks after they won the election. See above for the missing 20 billions.

23. Stop foreign aid and make anyone who has traded in the UK since 1990 pay the proper tax and don’t forget about the bank bailouts the tax payer should own them

24. They want sympathy for having to retire at 65 when the younger generation will be retiring at 70+?

25. It’s laughable that they claim to be against inequality all whilst pushing for more of it.

26. I know Kemi Badenoch will search for any stick to bear Keir Starmer with but can someone remind me what the last Tory government do to remedy this injustice? Or was it like the blood scandal, they kicked the can down the road for the following government to fix.

27. boomers are already mostly millionaires , why giving them more money

28. What’s that thing I hear online occasionally? When you’re in a position of privilege, equality feels like oppression.

29. Women have worked hard and want to have a retirement benefit, which means they can be productive members of society by being able to help the younger generation with children, life and work

30. This story has so little sympathy from voters other than than coffin clutching Tories. It’s amazing they keep running with it.

31. Keir jusr stop talking about it. If you do need to say anything just point out what waspi stands for and how what they are asking for is a long ways from equality. They are literally crying because the law treated them equally to men. They had 15 years noticed and choose not to amend their retirement plans, fuck em

    If they pay our for this, I want compensation for Brexit, because I was planning my future around having free movement and I got that ripped out from under me by the bastard brigade with much less notice

32. But he can afford Billions to climate scam/green nonsense, Billions for housing illegals, Billions for Ukraine, Billions for Union Bosses….the man is beneath contempt. No wonder he’s now the most hated PM in modern history in record time.

33. Nobody warned me when I was a kid in the 90s that I should’ve used my lunch money to get onto a housing ladder, because once I’m a young adult with a student debt (I was told uni is my chance to make it in life) the housing cost will eat up most of my income and cost of living crisis will make it near impossible to get onto that ladder. I demand a detached 3 bed house in SE as a compensation, who’s in with me? We’ll make chat GPT to write us a nice petition /s

34. My pension age (genx) has gone up since I started work, everyone’s has, not sure what makes these special?

35. I love the irony of their acronym. The I in Waspi stands for inequality, and their campaign is against making the pension age equal regardless of gender.

36. Yeah it’s completely fine for us to piss 140bn against the wall because some people believed some shit on a bus and got annoyed at the Polish supermarket next door.

    It’s fine to hand out fat govt contracts to cronies for goods that can’t and won’t be delivered.

    However not actively saying FUCK YOU to our mum’s and grandmas many of whom earned 80p for every quid their male equivalent earned (don’t worry sugar tits you now earn 92p so its fine) is a massive drain on the public purse.

    In the grand scheme here there was an options for us not to be total cxxts here but bugger that lets not break the habit of the last couple of generations.

37. A Labour decision I’m happy with. More of this free loader swatting.

38. I have very little sympathy for the people who did not realise their pensions were going to change, they were told in 1995.

    However, Labour made a massive song and dance about compensating the WASPI women when they were in opposition, with Angela Rayner outright declaring that a Labour would put things right. Was that simply a lie to get people to vote for them, or have they seriously only just realised how much it would cost? Either way, the accusations of them playing politics on the matter have merit.

39. This is such an amusing example of how ‘equality’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘fairness’, something Neoliberals like New Labour have exploited rather handily over the last few decades, and people like the Tories positively *reslish.*

    It’s always better to try and improve the lives of *everyone* who falls under the diminishing brackets of working and middle class, rather than fighting over scraps.

    When you do, shit like this happens – and these ladies were warned as much too.

40. They knew, besides, Boomers don’t need the money. I’m glad tax payer doesn’t have to foot the bill. At least most of these old fuckers own their own homes.

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