FOR someone who proclaims on his website that people should not communicate with their audiences until their message is right, Peter Duncan contravenes his own diktat in style in his Agenda contribution ("Time to stop pandering to the grey vote with unaffordable benefits", The Herald, January 31).
He opines that the Coalition Government's "profligacy" in continuing with the triple lock on state pensions, free bus passes, the winter fuel benefit, free TV licences and "all the rest" shows a Government averse to taking the hard decisions and at the very least, the above should all be means-tested.
Most analyses of the efficacy of means-tested benefits have deemed them to be a failure, something that was examined in depth prior to the 2011 UK General Election when Nick Clegg proposed exactly the same thing. Now Mr Duncan states that "a large percentage of recipients simply do not need that support".
The big problem with his analysis is that the vast majority of pensioners in the UK are not wealthy, many live below, on or just above the poverty line, and do in fact need that support.
So unless the minority of wealthy pensioners that exists can be persuaded to give up their tax-free benefits voluntarily, the cost of means-testing will in all probability wipe out most, if not all, of the savings.
One way to means-test pensioners cheaply would be to remove the concessions from higher-rate taxpayers - those with taxable incomes of £32,000 or more, who can easily be identified from their tax returns. However, only around 500,000 pensioners (4%) out of more than 12 million are higher rate taxpayers, so the savings, if any, would be minor.
I believe that compassion and respect for our older citizens, enabling them to have a reasonable quality of life in their own homes, far outweigh Mr Duncan's desire to punish all of them in his haste to defuse the "real, ticking time-bomb" and restore our public finances.
Lindsay Scott,
194 Thornhill Road,
Falkirk.
Peter Duncan argues that the time has come to attack the real cause of the deficit: the pensioners .
He wants a real debate on welfare priorities and cites the example of pensioners who, having had one too many tipples over lunch at the golf club, then depart for home using their bus passes in time to book their holiday in the sun using their winter fuel payment.
His recipe for reforming the finances of the country are , as a true-blue Tory, fixated on the welfare budget .
Never mind 200% bonuses at RBS, it's the 2.5% rise in pensions that is anathema to him; forget the tax-evading multi-nationals, attack the winter fuel payments; let's waste billions of pounds on Trident, but we must reduce child benefit.
Mr Duncan, a former Conservative MP, is managing director of a PR firm, Message Matters. His former constituents, obviously got his message and acted on it ; they no doubt include the sun-tanned , slightly tipsy elderly golfers .
James Mills ,
29 Armour Square ,
Johnstone.
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