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Issue No 92 Spring 2025
Paul Laxton
IT’S BEEN A LONG WINTER
By the time this edition hits your doormat or your inbox, winter will be over. The clocks will have gone forward, the daffodils will be in full bloom, and cherry blossom will be brightening up your local park. It will not quite be time for shorts and T-shirt, but at least you can put your heavy overcoat away until November. As far as your pocket is concerned, no more glances at the smart meter, which if yours is anything like mine, will have seen you spending at twice the rate of your direct debit even during relatively benign spells of weather, depending on your need for warmth.
We would have to be honest and say that we are better equipped to cope with the loss of the winter fuel allowance than many pensioners. Indeed thanks to fiscal drag some members will have fallen into the 40% tax bracket, with more to follow for as long as the income tax bands are frozen. Nevertheless, we will all have friends and relatives who are struggling. For all the reasons that are obvious older people spend more time at home. We don’t have the fallback of using our employer’s energy. There are chronic medical conditions that adversely affect the ability to keep warm. Mechanical aids such as Kidney Dialysis machines or electric wheelchairs need electricity to work or power up.
However, the outcome that our civil service pensions cannot protect us against against is the loss of power. I was shocked to learn that during the cold spell in early January there were just seven days’ worth of gas left in store. This compares to eighty-nine days in Germany. We do not know how close we really came to power cuts in the winter, as officialdom guards that information jealously. What I can safely say is that power shortages will increase further public disillusion with the two main political parties. The Tories for decommissioning gas storage facilities, and Labour for taking the winter fuel allowance from 10 million pensioners.
The last edition went to the printers earlier than normal, so there were no items from the 2024 PGA Conference. Tom Wheatley has kindly allowed me to reproduce his speech in full. The increase in jail sentence discounts bought time, but prison cells are full to bursting again. The Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has admitted that even the 14,000 promised places will not solve the problem. Every egg is therefore in the basket of the sentencing review. A digest of Part One has been sourced by Brendan O’Friel, and David Gauke’s report is fiercely critical of the unedifying competition between the two main parties as to who can boast of being the toughest on crime via massively increased sentenced lengths without providing the decent places and interventions needed to reduce reoffending.
Sadly, yet again, the Newsletter is dominated by the death of a gubernatorial colossus. The legendary Bob Duncan is no longer with us. His funeral service, eulogy, and words from his partner, Enid, can be found on pages 12-19.
RIP Bob: Click here for Editors Note
PAUL LAXTON, editor
Spring 2023
PENSIONERS UNDER SIEGE?
Many of you will have seen the outrageous suggestion from a 'think tank' called the Adam Smith Institute that state pensions should be denied to those pensioners whose wealth measured in terms of pensions and property exceeds a million pounds. I was immediately struck by the .........
