Hurrah - that's 5x day returns to Crewe

No ifs, no buts. Alistair Darling has produced a master stroke at a time when everyone on low pay/pension could do with a little extra. I promised to head for Crewe if the compensation package was unequivocal. A quick check on Virgin trains website is offering £22.15 day returns from London for those of us on Senior railcards. As one of the unintended beneficiaries that is five trips to help with the campaign. Or if any comrade could offer lodgings....

Comments

[Nick]

I'm not so sure about this being a masterstroke Peter, after this 10p nightmare, people have woken up and are taking notice, taking the time to read the small print the element of trust has gone.

There are 22 million winners, most of whom were already benefitting from the withdrawal of the 10p rate a bit of a win win for those. It's the 1.1 million losers I feel for I thought Frank Field was looking for a gaurantee on no losers?. They chose the quick and the easy option, hell whats another £2.7 billion on what we owe already. I don't necessarily believe it was the right choice but I think his hands were tied, the panic button had been hit.

They've now given it out and unless there's going to be a real upturn in the fortunes of this country in the next year, he'd better be very careful about how he goes about clawing it back and who he claws it back from.

This could turn out to be one very expensive band aid that just may not stick!

They've still got a long way to go before i'll be voting for them again.

[Peter Kenyon]

Dear Nick

Labour had to make a dramatic announcement consistent with its fairness agenda that would benefit as many people on low and modest incomes as possible. Darling has done that for 22 million people and the Party.

The internal policy review now underway gives all members an opportunity to strengthen Labour's commitment to raising pay levels, take more people out of tax and tackle greed.

You could help strengthen that case by (re)joining the Labour Party if you support that agenda.

[Robert]

Nope not yet, not until I know that the lowest paid the sick the disabled the elderly are taken care off and not just the rich, all Labour has done now is move the people who lost out back to the base line, while those on £50,000 plus are better off, if you think thats being fair at the bottom you have a poor sense of equality.

Food is now going up power electric gas water inflation, my council is doing it's nut about government grants cuts, who will lose out well after a review the elderly care.

Power companies say profits must be maintained well yes I suppose so one has to keep the top boys wages up.
Some bight out look

[David Floyd]

Well, to be fair to Darling, even the 1.1 million who are still losing are now not losing quite as badly as they were before.

It's not exactly a masterstroke, though. Brown's finished.

This will prolong the inevitable for a year or so and hopefully the reduce the chances of Brown dragging the party into the dustbin of history with him.

[Robert]

Has ever a leader looked so poor at leading, one comment on another site said if we are to lose lets lose with style, and what did we get for Browns vision nothing, they keep going on about housing yet for eleven years have the worse record of any government since 1945.

They are going to get 2.2 million disabled people into work yet cannot reduce the unemployed down below a million, they are going to give women the right to flexi time, but only after the women has gone through a period of discussion, not much good if your employers does not want flexi time. They are worried about care within the elderly because it will go up to six billion, and yet wasted £139 billion on Think tanks and special advisor's, now after all the talk about immigration being good for us they say we will stop people getting benefits unless they are British which is against the EU law, it's the same old problem spin and sound bites.

[Nick]

Peter, when/if, and thats a big if, it once again becomes the all inclusive party I thought it once was then i'll consider voting for them and maybe more.

Once again today we had another set of measures aimed at "Family Finances" its exactly that kind of attitude that resulted in so many of the losers when he abolished the 10p tax rate, Single people, couples without children, early retirees. I thought after all the listening they've supposed to have been doing lately they'd have got the bloody message by now and would lay off playing the family card for a bit, apparently we're not screaming loud enough or they need to get their hearing checked out.

The whole lot of them are either incredibly stubborn, thick skinned or just incredibly stupid, sorry I forgot they're politicians.

Those who lost out in the 10p fiasco are just about breaking even, those who gained are gaining again.

Whilst i'm on a rant £30000 to £40000 a year keeps getting referred to as "Middle Income", not where me and a lot of others stand. I believe the mean full time wage in the UK is a round £26000, and thats distorted upwards by the happy few at the very top of the scale. The median salary comes in a couple of thousand less. £30000 to £40000 slightly above "Middle Income" to me and a awful lot of others.