Neil Worker

I completely reject the way the BBC has framed this argument, and particularly the suggestion that the triple lock is somehow becoming unsustainable because pensioners’ living standards have improved more quickly than those of working people. That is an extraordinarily narrow way of looking at what has actually happened. There is a rather important part of this story that is being conveniently overlooked. Successive Conservative governments froze the personal tax allowance, and the present Labour Government has continued that policy. The consequence for pensioners is particularly stark. Their State Pension rises, as it should, yet the amount they are permitted to receive before paying income tax remains frozen. They are therefore being steadily dragged into the tax system through fiscal drag, with an increasing proportion of their pension becoming taxable. Indeed, we are now reaching the absurd position where the full new State Pension itself is likely to exceed the personal tax allowance. The Government will increase the pension under the triple lock and then, because it refuses to raise the tax threshold, begin taking part of that increase back in taxation. If we are going to talk about a “ratchet effect”, perhaps that is the ratchet effect we ought to be discussing. Nor are these payments some unexpected act of generosity bestowed upon pensioners by the state. These are people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions throughout their lives on the understanding that, when they reached retirement, the State Pension would form part of their income. For millions of people, that was part of the social contract between the individual and the state. We should also remember how that contract has already changed. When many of today’s pensioners began their working lives, the State Pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women. Those ages have since been increased. People have already been required to work longer and wait longer before receiving the pension towards which they spent decades contributing. Against that background, to portray a State Pension of around £250 a week as evidence that pensioners are somehow becoming too prosperous is frankly absurd. Nobody could seriously describe that sum, from which people must meet the ordinary costs of living, as an extravagant retirement income. The triple lock was introduced for a reason. The value of the British State Pension had been allowed to fall behind earnings over many years, while pensioner poverty became a serious national problem. It was designed to prevent that happening again and to ensure that pensioners shared, at least to some reasonable extent, in the rising prosperity of the country rather than being progressively left behind. So the question should not be whether Britain can afford to honour the triple lock. The more pertinent question is why governments believe it acceptable to increase the State Pension while deliberately freezing the tax threshold until that pension itself becomes taxable. After a lifetime of work and contributions, pensioners are not asking for charity. They are asking for the settlement they spent their working lives paying towards to be honoured. That distinction matters.

Watching Louise Haigh deliver this statement, I was struck by one thing above all else: we have heard virtually all of it before. Perhaps that should come as no surprise. Haigh was one of the leading figures in the political coup that ultimately brought down Keir Starmer and propelled Andy Burnham into Downing Street. Listening to her now, it is becoming increasingly apparent that much of the language, political positioning and populist appeal that characterised Burnham’s campaign was not merely electoral rhetoric. It appears to be the governing philosophy of the new administration, with Haigh very much at its heart. Much of what she says about the problems facing this country is perfectly true. That is precisely why the absence of substance is so frustrating. Identifying what is wrong with Britain is not difficult. Articulating public dissatisfaction is not difficult. Producing grand phrases about returning power to communities, putting people back in control and rewiring the state is not difficult either. The difficult part is governing. Where are the figures? Where are the firm commitments? Where are the timescales? Where are the measurable objectives against which this Government expects to be judged? How, precisely, will these promises be delivered and, perhaps most importantly of all, how will they be paid for? These are not unreasonable questions. They are the most elementary questions that any Government making promises of this magnitude should be capable of answering. There is also something rather disingenuous about presenting much of this as though it represents some revolutionary departure from what went before. A considerable amount of what Haigh described was already being pursued by the previous Government under Keir Starmer. Taking an existing direction of travel, clothing it in more populist language and presenting it with greater political theatre does not make it a new philosophy of government. Burnham and Haigh are no longer insurgents. They are no longer campaigning against the establishment, nor are they plotting a change of leadership from the sidelines. They succeeded. They now occupy Downing Street and possess all the authority and machinery of government that comes with it. With that victory comes responsibility. The time for simply telling people what they want to hear has passed. It is no longer sufficient to declare that Westminster has failed, that the system is broken or that everything is about to change. Government requires rather more than identifying grievances and promising something better. Tell us precisely what you are going to do. Tell us how you are going to do it. Tell us when it will be done. Tell us what it will cost. Then give Parliament and the British public clear measures by which your success or failure can be judged. After Burnham’s performance at PMQs and now this statement from Haigh, a rather troubling pattern is beginning to emerge: an abundance of rhetoric, an abundance of populism and an alarming shortage of detail. Campaigns can be won with slogans. Countries cannot be governed by them.