How low can they go ?

[Papaumau]

I was shocked to read yesterday that one of the ideas that the government are looking at in order to save money is scrapping the cold-weather payments to pensioners.

Are they mad ?

Even at the moment, where these vital payments are being issued, elderly people are still dying of hypothermia every winter - especially in Scotland.

Are these care-nought Tories actually willing to condemn more frail old people to dying of cold simply to save a few bob ?

I hope not !

What do you think of this idea ?

[John Sheffield]

Papa

No person pensioner or otherwise should suffer hypothermia because they cannot afford heating in this country. There are two groups of people susceptible to hypothermia the very young and the very old.

The coalition will never remove this benefit for those pensioners who need it.  Please don't scare monger. The coalition may consider taking this benefit from weathly  pensioner who are financially self sufficient. Why would you want working families to pay your heating bills through taxation when they may be struggling to pay their own.

ONS Facts (not my opinion) will tell you that we have never had so many wealthy pensioners in this country on good final salary pensions, large equities in property and large savings. We do however still have pensioner poverty in this country, particualry amongst the oldest pensioners. It is quite right for worker taxes to be used to help these pensioners with heating bills. Its not right for wealthy pensioners to recieve this as some kind of Christmas bonus- used to subsidise the next cruise on the Med.

[Papaumau]

"scaremonger"....ME ?

I was just reporting what was said in the news yesterday !

I will admit that Cameron MIGHT make this payment means-tested so as to try to target the money at the people who he thinks need it most, but, we all know just how easy - or not - it is for elderly people to apply for means-tested benefits. If he did this he would be just piling unfairness on to the top of unfairness.

As they already have a few billion pounds extra in the treasury coffers because elderly people either cannot or won't apply for means-tested benefits I guess that this idea will just add a few millions more to that growing and cynical pot.

Boy but you DO sound like a Tory when you spout about the number of "wealthy" pensioners we have in Britain.

Personally, even being one of them, I don't give a damn about the wealthy pensioners in Britain. The only ones that I care about are the poor and the sick and the frail ones that are going to slip through Cameron's carenought Tory net !

[Ivanhoe]

Mr Sheffield,  This Tory lead coalition are capable of anything.

I remember Thatcher not allowing pensioners to claim benefits unless temperatures stayed the same for 7 consequitive days, this was was the right wing at their meanest, their most harrowing, it harks back to the Third Reich if only those among the politically clueless British would open their bloody eyes.

Millions of pensioners are dying of cold in this country, afraid to spend money, afraid to eat, Britain is the sum of the earth the way we treat our elderly people.

If a pensioner "needs" their cold weather payment, then what they really "need" is a decent increase in the State pension.

Having "needy" pensioners in Britain is a disgrace in a country that lays claim to a set of civilised values.

[Hells Granny]

I am just approaching my fourth winter without heating or hot water. I hope this winter is less cold than last.

Cheers, Midori

[Papaumau]

Yes HG, it's a worry for many thousands of elderly people when they have to choose between heating and eating.

If this government have their way the old folks of Britain are going to die off in large numbers each winter. That way they will not be claiming their miserly state pension ever again.

No matter how you look at it, it is just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG ! 

[avalonmpk]

Mr Sheffield,  This Tory lead coalition are capable of anything.

I remember Thatcher not allowing pensioners to claim benefits unless temperatures stayed the same for 7 consequitive days, this was was the right wing at their meanest, their most harrowing, it harks back to the Third Reich if only those among the politically clueless British would open their bloody eyes.

Millions of pensioners are dying of cold in this country, afraid to spend money, afraid to eat, Britain is the sum of the earth the way we treat our elderly people.

If a pensioner "needs" their cold weather payment, then what they really "need" is a decent increase in the State pension.

Having "needy" pensioners in Britain is a disgrace in a country that lays claim to a set of civilised values.

Typical did you actually count them I doubt very much if any of this statement is true. There  sadly  there were a fewwho have died of hypothermia. But this was due more to the incompetence of the welfare officers & Social services than any political dogma - I knew of a person who died of dehydration during the Wilson administration that was during the long period of drought. I remember a youg lady reporter coming back in tears having covered the story for the paper that I worked for at the time.

[Papaumau]

Some facts...according to the BBC News:

Even although this news item is now ten years out of date it shows the trends that still apply right up until today.

Even a drop of one degree extra in a cold winter can generate many more deaths than otherwise

In year 1999 it was reported that 30,000 people, ( mostly the elderly ), died from hypothermia.

In any person's book that is a scandal !

See THIS and please read right down the column.

[Ivanhoe]

/////There  sadly  there were a fewwho have died of hypothermia. But this was due more to the incompetence of the welfare officers & Social services than any political dogma /////

Someone one on this site neads to move rapidly in to the real world and check out some fact with Age Concern, Help the aged, and The Site of the National Pensioners Convention.

Statistics arent really necessary, knowing that the State pension is too low,and realising that many older pensioners will have come through much harder times than today through know fault of their own, so pride stops them applying to be means tested for handouts, a practise I find abhhorant in a still rich coungtry like ours, to meter out to the elderly.

However, for some people, experience needs to be a teacher, but as this will probably never happen, a callous indifference to the very real plight of others seems to be the order of tghe day in Britain, and this is just one reason why we have the hard hearted politricians and people we have we have become in this country today.

[Papaumau]

I agree that while many of the last generation were made of stern stuff, I still don't think that even although they suffered hardship without many qualms that they were in fact any tougher than the older generation of today, ( The baby-boomers, some call us ).

It is a medical fact that elderly people do not have the same ability to stay warm in cold weather as younger people do and it is this fact that allows them to slowly get colder and colder in unheated homes until they simply die.

As the elderly do not have this natural central heating in their bodies, it does not matter how much they wrap up against the cold, they do eventually succumb to it if they do not have good external home-heating on all of the time in cold weather.

As the elderly also worry a lot about debt they often choose to go without good food and heating so that they do not default with their rent or mortgage payments. This simply exacerbates the problem of staying warm and we all know the result.