I am not sure if this applies to many on the Bunker, if the government stick by the ‘rules’ the triple lock the State Pension should increase by 10% next April. This year they reneged and didn’t implement the triple lock, will they do the same for 2023 ?

I hope not with the way things are going but it wouldn't surprise me. Oh! and these Barristers going on strike for a 25% pay rise, Christ I wish I was a few quid behind them they should be jailed themselves, Bastards!!!

I thought they were striking for a pay reduction…… you just don’t feel their pain somehow.

I wonder if the Tory government who said they might make strikes illegal would they threaten to sack the barristers like they want to,do to the man in the street ?

Of course if the State Pension went up then that would mean more of your tax allowance being eaten up and if you are fortunate to have a private pension that would be taxed at a higher level.

I thought most were self employed so cannot see the reason for striking against whom? Their self?

At the moment with strikes being held by Postmen/Women, Train people, Felixstowe Docks, Barristers, Bin Men and the list goes on all wanting 10/12% wage increases, where is it going to end.

I think the pensioners should go on strike.

A rise in state pension normally comes hand in hand with an increase in Council Tax and one negates the other.

As for this triple lock it will follow the previous "promise" and end up as worthless bullsh*t.

I'll send the wife down to man(woman) the picket line

The triple lock should be applied as it is set out.
If the basic state pension increase was 20%, it would only go up by about a £1 per hour.
At the moment it stands at roughly half the minimum wage. ( based on a 40 hour week)
I would like to see a cabinet minister live on less than £200 per week or even a barrister.
People on £10 an hour are struggling and there are millions on universal credit to top their income up.
When people who have worked all their lives have to save up to afford a bag of fish and chips or the price of a pint it is a sorry state of affairs.
I remember an old boy who had served in the second world war once telling me that the lads used to chat about the first thing they would do when the war ended and he said "I'm going down the pub to have a gallon of beer then stagger home with a bag of fish and chips." Which he did eventually but when he was telling the tale he was a pensioner and he finished up by saying " after all we went through and then worked until we were 65 and retired on the pension, at that point we couldn't afford a night out like that.

That would mean telling our lass I’m stopping work on the Pergola down the garden ……… you come round and tell her.

whoever thought up these percentage rises either unions or management should hold their heads in shame. back in the early 70,s we got X amount a week increases that everyone got. now its a percentage where the richer get even richer and the poorest hardly get a thing. always remember costs are the same for a millionaire as it is for someone on benefits. you do not get a percentage off your grocery bill because you have received less of a rise in your pocket.

The big claims come from the big organised groups with safety in numbers or supposedly indispensable jobs. If you work for Terry Plywood Builder’s, tough.

Barristers are very well paid when they get to QC or a specialist but at junior level they're on a pittance, much worse that minimum wage. Also it takes the best part of a year to get paid for a legal aid case. I only know because my ex was a Barrister.

then the only thing to do is bridge the wage gap and not make it larger by a percentage wage increase for all.

I wouldn't disagree with that.

Also out of the pittance that juniors receive they have to pay their own travelling expenses. Given the number of local magistrates courts that have closed this has increased these expenses. I have no sympathy for senior barristers who can easily earn a grand a day but I’m just adding the other end of the scale into the discussion.

The reason percentages are used is because employees are generally keen to maintain the status of their position and employers are keen to encourage aspirations to get to those jobs. Workers on the shop floor will fight tooth and nail to maintain differentials.
The unions insist on a rate for the job which is tantamount to saying each person is as productive as the next, when in fact they aren't.
It's commonly referred to as a skiver's charter.
On the other hand it is practically impossible to write up individual contracts.
There is a hierarchy when it comes to pay. Those at the bottom cry everybody should get the same rise, while those further up cry bollocks.
Which is why various chancellor's are prepared to help with handouts and concessions because that way everyone gets a fixed amount per category and the pay packet doesn't get disproportionally inflated. There is also no year on year compounding of it.
Coming up with what people may consider good ideas is a lot easier than implementing them.

Well i will be getting the increase.

Amongst the worst pensions in Western Europe and they keep putting the age up. Seriously?
And NO Party has done f#&k all about it, not one ever.

Unfortunately we can’t go strike, I wonder being cynical how people die before reaching pension age more so as they keep putting the retirement age up. I very much doubt anyone in a physical job in the Building/Engineering industry could carry on working if they could who is going to employ them ?
When the Tories introduced the Triple Lock it was to entice the blue rinse brigade to vote for them, of course they reneged on their manifesto likewise on there would be income tax and NI increases.

Legal Aid in general is under funded. When I started in 2010, Legal Aid family solicitors were on £64.90 per hour for Care Proceedings cases, this was reduced to £52.57 per hour in 2014 and has remained at that figure ever since. Whilst it’s still a decent amount, that reduction is huge.

[quote="Jamie1952"][

Unfortunately we can’t go strike, I wonder being cynical how people die before reaching pension age more so as they keep putting the retirement age up. I very much doubt anyone in a physical job in the Building/Engineering industry could carry on working if they could who is going to employ them ?

its not so much of people dying before they reached the pension age its their inability to carry on with a job that was their lifetimes work through some medical issue. Then after a period on the sick they will be assessed and be able to do some type of work that really they have no training or aptitude for doing. eventually most reach pension age which will come as a relief for many.

I started work in 1964 and retired in 2017, aged 68, nearly 53 years of paying taxes etc.

I've had 5 years of retirement and generally enjoy doing bugger all except for my love of horse racing.

Friend asked me if I wanted to do some office work for 1 day a week but the business was some 15 miles away and I just thought with fuel costs etc it just wasn't worth the effort.

I've had a belief since I was young which I'm sure would be alien to most, is that the day you are born there is a date for your death already given but you do not know this date.

This was confirmed to me when I was 11/12 and run across the road without really checking it was clear and got knocked down by a car but was not seriously injured - it just wasn't my day that day.

never believed myself in your life being panned out for you the day you are born. Lots down to luck where a long and fit life can be regarded as being lucky even if you have never been lucky in love or money. My ma was one who would have lost her purse out shopping but found a tanner in the street but did make her 100,s birthday.

It’s down to luck…. I was checking out a seawater blowdown valve for maintenance in foul weather…. went in the cabin housing it reached across to adjust the flow and I suddenly got tunnel vision and finished up on the deck outside the cabin ….. turns out it had been installed without being earthed……..luckily it was on an automatic timer sequence or it would have been curtains.
To be fair I felt great for a couple of days afterwards

Some people believe your heart is only built for so many beats so exercise is a way of bringing forward your death.
Not sure about that one but hey ho !

When I was an apprentice we were rewiring Council hoses, I was sent under the floor to connect some wires up. very confined space crawling on my stomach, I pulled the fuse which I thought was for them. I crawled under the floor, thought I will double check they are dead, put my screwdriver across the wires, sparks everywhere I had pulled the wrong fuse. If I had grabbed the wires I would have been a goner, moral always switch the main switch off and double there is no power.
Even 50 odd years later thinking about it still sends shivers down my spine.

My thoughts on the above episodes were that it was not luck but it wasn't your day.

Remember when I was about 7, 8. I was at my grandparents and found a box that had fuse wire and sockets in it. This was 2 pin Bakelit stuff I plugged the two pin plug in the socket...nothing happened .. was expecting electricity or something to be flowing out??? So I unscrewed the back of the plug to see why no electricity was coming out, then decided to touch the two pins inside plug and hey presto flung across hallway. Now the best bit, after recovering from my experience I gingerly screw the cap back onto the back of the plug disconnected from wall placed said plug in box, put away in draw...and never fucked around with electricity until college and beyond.

When the 5 minute cycle shut down with only 2 seconds to go and my second son born the next day, it’s luck.

These are the people who are governing the country, slightly of topic,
https://youtu.be/6i1-ncKC1DY

So you don't agree, now there's a surprise.

If your meaning Sunak and Patels comments I don’t agree with them,
1) Why should anyone working have to claim benefits, is it because the employers are not paying them enough ? Tesco used to and probably still do employ mostly part time staff, the hours kept to a level where the staff could claim benefits.
2) Freedom of Movement, now we have a shortage of Care Workers, Hospitality Staff etc people to collect fruit and veg, the jobs Brits won’t do as the salaries are poor.
What I didn’t agree with was some EU labour were recruited and were not paid the going rate and were put in poor quality housing, basically imported cheap labour more so on the farms and in the Construction/Engineering Industries.

To change this employers need to up the salaries to make it more beneficial to work rather than claim benefits albeit there are some who will never want to work and know how to use/abuse the system.

Mr J this has been the stance of ALL Governments down the years, the Labour Party are as big a bunch of hypocrites as the rest over the past fifty years, in fact they are now a middle class party in practice, which is why I’m the man who decides who gets elected, the floating voter, your vote is bought and paid for by your adherence to the Labour Party.
The flexible votes decide who sits in Downing Street, and I vote for what’s best for me and mine, not extremes, just common sense down to Earth policies.

on point 1 its the system itself to blame as much as the workers or a company taking advantage. always remember a guy turning up as we wanted a couple of new floor walkers in the arcade. he said he only wanted to work a certain number of hours as it would affect his top ip benefit if he worked more making it uneconomical for him. i did what he said and he was a bloody good worker who hardly stopped on the days we had him. on point 2 so much is made of freedom of movement. a working permit is still available for people from abroad to come here for specified work the same as we can do the same. actually this is a better system than the open door policy where workers themselves are less likely to face explotation from firms and those in charge of them possibly from the same country of origin themselves.

The benefit system is there for those who need it, not for able bodied people who can't be arsed to get off the couch.
Never been out of work in my life and never been on benefits apart from the state pension, which isn't actually a benefit, considering the amount of tax and national insurance I've paid.
Before anybody criticises the people who run it, sort out the people who abuse it. When that is achieved there will be room in the channel again for boats which are there legally.

It's programmes like Fraud Squad I find so annoying where they establish somebody is claiming disability benefit where they are virtually unable to get out of bed but find them down the pub dancing.

It then takes the investigators another 30/40 covert spying missions to prove all along that the claim is fraudulent It eventually goes to court with most likely a suspended prison sentence and bugger all in the way of restitution.

Some of these false claims run into thousands as well.

how these people get on the band wagon in the first place is what surprises me. suppose like everything else its the genuine ones that will have to tick the correct boxes but those who know the system better than the ones who inforce it get away with murder till they slip up.

Defrauding the country should be an act of treason and dealt with accordingly. What is lower than stealing from the pockets of your fellow citizens.

doubt people ever think of it that way. more likely think the few quid defrauded from the government is a drop in the ocean when the governments talk in billions. bit like shoplifting from a big supermarket against your little corner shop. i,d personally turn a blind eye to the former but not the other.

Can anyone remember in their days people getting benefits to pay rent etc, my Father was a farm worker on a pittance, my Mother had 2/3 part time cleaning jobs. The only benefit they ever got was Family Allowance. I don’t recall in my early working life people getting benefits except dole money/sick money.
When did all the additional benefits we hear about now kick in, there is a list as long as your arm ?

Probably when you and your comrades voted Tony Blair into power.

Bloody hell, you now who I vote for, are you physic, yes maybe Blair and co did introduce additional benefits but unscrupulous employers know they can get away with paying low wages knowing they will be topped up with benefits, in effect we are subsidising these companies. Your lot are allowing the zero hours contracts where no working hours are guaranteed and people can’t claim benefits. I don’t remember ever if there were any food banks in the Blair days. You sound like the type who would send young kids up chimneys to sweep them.

I think you meant Psychic but you're obviously not, because I am a member of the Labour party but that doesn't stop me criticising them where I think it is necessary and unfortunately these days criticism of them is becoming the norm, simply because they haven't got a clue where to pitch their tent these days. The party is overrun with hard line lefties whose only expertise is spending other people's money until it runs out and then they send messages stating sorry the tin is empty. Being a committed Socialist I live in hope that one day sense will prevail and an alternative Government will present itself as electable but I'm not holding my breath. They should be miles ahead if we're honest about it.
As for chucking kids up chimneys, not an advocate of that old chum. Making progress has my approval and we made progress by abolishing that practice. However paying people for doing nowt and encouraging the work shy is not progress and so I don't encourage that practice one bit.
So if you have to pigeon hole me, mark me down as discerning insomuch as I don't have to agree to anything or even everything but have the ability to judge each prospect on it's merits.
There now, I hope you are now suitably enlightened.
As an observation you appear to favour starting threads which lean heavily towards political undertones which whilst creating discussion and debate always lean to diversion and intransigence. My old grandad use to observe that when politics and religion come through the door, politeness, tolerance and common sense go out of the window.
Food for thought I would suggest.

I like to start threads which people are interested in debating, not every one’s views are the same no matter what your political leanings are. Unfortunately nowadays people are influenced by what they read in the press the majority which is right wing.
As I said before I don’t want the Labour Party back in power not because I am a conservative but let them sort the mess out they have created over the last ten years.

That's all well and good Mr J but political debate is divisive and we have to be careful.
That's all.
You are perfectly entitled to encourage discussion on anything but please remember it's not you who has to clean up any subsequent mess.

Mess ??

I read every post that is written on here and the ones which command my attention most are the contentious ones. I try not to take the easy route by deleting individual posts or threads or members. I'd much prefer to let it run sensibly.
I'm sure you get what I am saying.
There is more and more criticism and scrutiny being focussed on social media these days and the board and it's members have to be diligent.
I'm leaving it at that if you don't mind.

I blame it all on the left wing bias spun by the BBC.
Just take the BBCs coverage of snooker. There are 15 reds,a pinko, and a green yet there is only one blue.
At least when it comes to race its quite reasonable with one white, one black, one yellow and a brown.

Can I answer that by saying it's a load of BALLS

Can I answer that by saying it's a load of BALLS