UK pensions

[Oxx]

11 minutes ago, nontabury said:

 No it's not unfounded Blair bashing. Tony WMD Blair fought tooth and nail against the rights of British pensioners to obtain an annual increase in their state pension, this led to the Consrtium of British Pensions taking the case through the Houses of Commons and then to the ECHR in 2008. It's quite easy to look up on google,just type in Carson ECHR.

 

Googled as you suggested, and looked at the top three results.  None of them contains even a single mention of Blair.

 

So why, in the complete absence of evidence, do you and others believe "Blair fought tooth and nail against the rights of British pensioners to obtain an annual increase in their state pension"?

[nontabury]

58 minutes ago, rockingrobin said:

 

I think the case you are referring to is A Carson and others v UK. This started in the UK High Court and proceeded to Appeal and eventually the House of Lords. After exhausting the UK options it  was then taken to ECHR and finally the Grand Chamber, at each stage the claimant lost,

To claim discrimination would require that cases that were like, are not treated alike, in the case of Carson v UK it was necessary to show that British  pensioners residing in SA is the same as British pensioners living in the UK. Carson relied upon the payment of NI alone as justification.This failed due to NI is not exclusively for the state pension, but part of the UKs tax system and is used to provide other benefits, unlike a private pension.If the payment of NI was sufficient then it would logically follow the claimant was entitled to other benefits.

The case against also highlighted that the purpose of uprating was too reflect the situation in the UK, a pensioner in the UK is supporting the UK economy whilst the expat pensioner is supporting the host country economy.

 

 

 Firstly the state pension is not a Benefit.

Maybe a UK based pensioner is supporting the UK economy. But a USA based British pensioner is no more spending his fully payed for state pension in the UK than a British state pensioner living in Canada. 

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by nontabury

[rockingrobin]

22 minutes ago, nontabury said:

 

 Firstly the state pension is not a Benefit.

Maybe a UK based pensioner is supporting the UK economy. But a USA based British pensioner is no more spending his fully payed for state pension in the UK than a British state pensioner living in Canada. 

 

Under UK law it is social welfare, social security contributions and benefits act 1992

The reciprocal arrangements allow the government to improve social security benefits for the UK expat on terms that the UK finds favourable,   

[evadgib]

1 hour ago, Oxx said:

 

Googled as you suggested, and looked at the top three results.  None of them contains even a single mention of Blair.

 

So why, in the complete absence of evidence, do you and others believe "Blair fought tooth and nail against the rights of British pensioners to obtain an annual increase in their state pension"?

 

Which is it, Naivety or Trolling?

What's your agenda?

Would you decline indexing if HMG did a U turn or are you already in an 'alright Jack' sanctuary?

[Oxx]

16 minutes ago, evadgib said:

 

Which is it, Naivety or Trolling?

What's your agenda?

Would you decline indexing if HMG did a U turn or are you already in an 'alright Jack' sanctuary?

 

My agenda is simply to find the truth:  did Blair fight tooth and nail in this matter or not?  So far, over numerous posts, nobody has provided any evidence whatsoever that he did, so I'm inclined to think it's simply baseless Blair-bashing.  However, such is my faith in human nature that I would like to believe those who so adamantly claim he did, and would be very happy to be proven wrong.

[evadgib]

28 minutes ago, Oxx said:

 

My agenda is simply to find the truth:  did Blair fight tooth and nail in this matter or not?  So far, over numerous posts, nobody has provided any evidence whatsoever that he did, so I'm inclined to think it's simply baseless Blair-bashing.  However, such is my faith in human nature that I would like to believe those who so adamantly claim he did, and would be very happy to be proven wrong.

Explained and ignored in 2851.

[JB300]

 
My agenda is simply to find the truth:  did Blair fight tooth and nail in this matter or not?  So far, over numerous posts, nobody has provided any evidence whatsoever that he did, so I'm inclined to think it's simply baseless Blair-bashing.  However, such is my faith in human nature that I would like to believe those who so adamantly claim he did, and would be very happy to be proven wrong.

<deleted> can we please agree/ leave the argument that Blair was an anchor or start a new thread where we'll be more than happy to debate [emoji106]

Meantime back to the subject (UK pensions) have been through just about as much gumf as I can take & come to the conclusion that Brexit is not going to change things 1 iota (except maybe kick the can further down the road).

[sandyf]

14 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

 

I had a phone call from the State pensions people this evening and they explained the exchange rates from January to December 2016 which I had to write down by hand as 10 minutes before they called we had a power cut.

 

The rate at which they buy/transfer baht via Citibank from April last years is as follows

Month              Rate/thb

April                 49.50

May                  50.74

June                50.30

July                  45.44

August            45.53

September     45.72

October           44.85

November      42.37

November      44.22      (I had 2 payments in October because I get paid every 4 weeks. 1 in early November 1 late Nov)

December      44.00

 

Because of the power cut I had no way of checking until after we had finished speaking.

 

he also gave me the 4 weekly rate in GBP that I get paid 13 times per year.

 

When the power came back I looked at my spreadsheet figures and the figures he gave me and they still didnt work. Then I looked at the monthly rate and realised that I had taken the annual rate and divided it by 12 and NOT 13. I changed the amount and the forex rates came out correct or certainly close enough.

 

I asked him if he could give me a contact number and Citibank and he told me that he was not allowed to do so. He also told me that it MAY take up to 10 working days for the transfer.

 

So now I will call him back in a bit and apologise for MY mistake.

 

I need a shave and a shower first though.

 

Just compound my problems I was baking 2 baguettes when the power went off and when it came back on and I finished baking them they came out sort of flattish.

Bill, I had a quick look back and got the following rates into my bank account based on the amount of deposit against my 4 weeks pension.

July - 45.69

August - 45.44

September - 44.97

 

July is a bit strange being above what they said. September is the last one I have as I moved my pension to my UK account in October. I just bring over what I need at the moment as I will be back in UK in July. When I did a transfer in November through HSBC and taking into account the charges, the rate into my account was 43.42. When I did that transfer, it was late Tuesday afternoon and the money was in my Thai account 09.00 the following morning.

[billd766]

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

Bill, I had a quick look back and got the following rates into my bank account based on the amount of deposit against my 4 weeks pension.

July - 45.69

August - 45.44

September - 44.97

 

July is a bit strange being above what they said. September is the last one I have as I moved my pension to my UK account in October. I just bring over what I need at the moment as I will be back in UK in July. When I did a transfer in November through HSBC and taking into account the charges, the rate into my account was 43.42. When I did that transfer, it was late Tuesday afternoon and the money was in my Thai account 09.00 the following morning.

 

My problem was that back at item 1 line 1 of my spreadsheet I got the monthly rate wrong. In October my hard drive crashed and locked up in there are all my bank statement, forex files etc going back over 9 years. There is a possibility that I can send the HD to Seagate in Singapore who will charge me between 15 and 20,000 thb to free them but I don't have that lying around loose at the moment.

 

November to May are the most expensive months for me with annual bills and school bills plus insurances coming in, so the HD will have to wait a while unless I can convince my wife to hock a lump of gold or alternative hock my wife. The problem with that is that she can be high maintenance at times.

[meatboy]

hi billd i have the exchange rates,scb bank TT RATES AS FOLLOWS,   month,no of days, then the dates.

march 5, 5th to 28th.

april 12    1st to29th.

may 4       2nd to 26th.

june 7       21st to 30th.

july 12       4th to 29th.

august 12  1st to 31st.

sept.  9        1st to 26th.

oct.    3        3rd to 26th.

nov.   6        1st to 24th.

dec. 1 on the 7th and 5 on 26th to 30th. then the banks were silent.

if you need any of the rates on certain days your welcome.

[sandyf]

4 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

My problem was that back at item 1 line 1 of my spreadsheet I got the monthly rate wrong. In October my hard drive crashed and locked up in there are all my bank statement, forex files etc going back over 9 years. There is a possibility that I can send the HD to Seagate in Singapore who will charge me between 15 and 20,000 thb to free them but I don't have that lying around loose at the moment.

 

November to May are the most expensive months for me with annual bills and school bills plus insurances coming in, so the HD will have to wait a while unless I can convince my wife to hock a lump of gold or alternative hock my wife. The problem with that is that she can be high maintenance at times.

Is your problem trying to read the drive in the computer or have you the facility to access the drive on its own. I had a problem where the computer would not read the hard drive and I bought an Oker USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE cable. With that you can connect the HD directly to a computer and run recovery utilities. Worked for me a few times now and I think it was only about 250 Baht.

[billd766]

2 hours ago, sandyf said:

Is your problem trying to read the drive in the computer or have you the facility to access the drive on its own. I had a problem where the computer would not read the hard drive and I bought an Oker USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE cable. With that you can connect the HD directly to a computer and run recovery utilities. Worked for me a few times now and I think it was only about 250 Baht.

 

I tried to get it fixed though a guy in Phuket but the read/write heads have failed and he sent it back. They will need to be replace in a "clean room" before there is any chance of being able to fire it up. After it does fire up there is no certainty that the data is still there and not corrupted. If the data is OK then they can save it to a cloud drive and send it back to me to download.

Edited January 7, 2017 by billd766
bad spelling

[sandyf]

19 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

I tried to get it fixed though a guy in Phuket but the read/write heads have failed and he sent it back. They will need to be replace in a "clean room" before there is any chance of being able to fire it up. After it does fire up there is no certainty that the data is still there and not corrupted. If the data is OK then they can save it to a cloud drive and send it back to me to download.

Unlucky, could be bite the bullet time.

[lungbing]

err, what has this to do with pensions?

[billd766]

2 hours ago, lungbing said:

err, what has this to do with pensions?

 

Blame me as I went a little off topic by explaining to Sandyf that I have so much on pensions saved in my faulty hard drive that I am unable to unlock.

 

[Ricardo]

Interesting article on how millenials are likely to worse off than we were, including the suggestion that " probably two million over-60s who live in households with more than a million pounds' worth of assets", talking specifically about the UK.

 

"We take it for granted that our children will be better off than us but the so-called millennials - anyone born in the 1980s or 1990s - could become the first generation in history to be worse off than their parents. "

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38558116

[vogie]

Does anyone know if I can inform my government pension on line about my change of address?

[Jip99]

5 minutes ago, vogie said:

Does anyone know if I can inform my government pension on line about my change of address?

 

 

 

Unfortunately not:-

 

You can contact the International Pension Centre (IPC) using the online enquiry form.

 

You need to report changes to your personal details (eg your address or bank details) by telephone or letter.

 

[lungbing]

I recently changed my bank details by phone following the forthcoming demise of Nationwide International.   The International Pension Centre (IPC) asked me a few security questions and did  the changes there and then and said there was no need to confirm in writing.  The next payment came through to my new bank without a problem.

[evadgib]

On 1/2/2017 at 0:58 PM, evadgib said:

Shafting 550.000 pensioners worldwide netted a knighthood for Webb in the the New Years Honours list....

 

 

 

I was pleased to see this award being questioned during todays PMQs by an SNP MP; citing Webb's 2011 pension legislation & the effect it had on some women's pensions...

Edited January 11, 2017 by evadgib

[evadgib]

8 hours ago, vogie said:

Does anyone know if I can inform my government pension on line about my change of address?

 

Unless things have changed recently they'll insist upon hard copy & will refuse to budge re any other form of notification.

 

HTH

[evadgib]

A classic example of misplaced priorities:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38591386 

[billd766]

19 minutes ago, evadgib said:

A classic example of misplaced priorities:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38591386 

 

Quote from the link.

 

According to DfID, UK support is currently reaching 154,000 Ugandan senior citizens.

 

The department has a target of reaching six million people a year through the schemes, including programmes targeting pregnant women and new mothers in Nigeria, elderly people in Uganda and parents in Pakistan who receive payments if their children attend school.

 

Yet the same F'ing government cannot find enough money to support some 650,000 of its own pensioners who have paid into the system for decades and who have frozen state pensions.

 

Barstewards make me want to vomit.

[nong38]

4 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

Quote from the link.

 

According to DfID, UK support is currently reaching 154,000 Ugandan senior citizens.

 

The department has a target of reaching six million people a year through the schemes, including programmes targeting pregnant women and new mothers in Nigeria, elderly people in Uganda and parents in Pakistan who receive payments if their children attend school.

 

Yet the same F'ing government cannot find enough money to support some 650,000 of its own pensioners who have paid into the system for decades and who have frozen state pensions.

 

Barstewards make me want to vomit.

To put things in perspective, the National Debt stands at 1655 trillion pounds just before Christmas.

[JB300]

To put things in perspective, the National Debt stands at 1655 trillion pounds just before Christmas.

Bl@@dy hell. It's gone up over 1,000 fold since it was £1.56Tr in Q1 2015!!!

Think that should be £1.655Tr (or £1,655 Billion) but your point is still valid, what it would cost to do the decent & right thing by pensioners is a drop in the ocean given how much money the government wastes elsewhere.

[Ricardo]

On the other hand, better to get handouts direct to the individual, rather than passing them through local-politicians' sticky fingers ?

 

But I fully agree about sorting-out the long-running injustice to British-pensioners, first.

[Oxx]

On 12/01/2017 at 0:25 PM, billd766 said:

 

Quote from the link.

 

According to DfID, UK support is currently reaching 154,000 Ugandan senior citizens.

 

The department has a target of reaching six million people a year through the schemes, including programmes targeting pregnant women and new mothers in Nigeria, elderly people in Uganda and parents in Pakistan who receive payments if their children attend school.

 

Yet the same F'ing government cannot find enough money to support some 650,000 of its own pensioners who have paid into the system for decades and who have frozen state pensions.

 

Barstewards make me want to vomit.

 

At least they've pulled the plug on GBP 5.2 million to a girl band in Ethiopia.  (However did that get approved?)

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/priti-patel-yegna-girl-effect-52-million-uk-taxpayer-international-aid-ethiopia-a7513956.html

[evadgib]

Of interest to the under 60s:

 

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/let-men-and-women-retire-at-60-with-a-state-pension?time=1482414872

[evadgib]

And again:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/voice-id-showcases-latest-digital-development-for-hmrc-customers   

[evadgib]

Another:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/over-92-billion-released-by-pension-freedoms