Monday December 30th 2024
Christine Grahame MSP writes her monthly column for Midlothian View
I am writing this as 2024 is nearing its end. Today, like much of 2024, the weather has been peculiar. Temperature in double digits (though that is to change in the coming days) with fierce winds. I fear for the old cupola over the hall. One day (after all it is over 100 years old) it may give in to the storms.
What it tells us is that all the predictions of global warming have indeed come to pass. What the birds make of it goodness knows though I continue to feed them (meal worms are the favourite menu).
Like you I have taken time to contact family. My son and his family in Canada have yet to receive their Advent calendar let alone the subsequent parcel with Xmas presents. Canada post went on strike mid-November and just returned a few days before Xmas. Last year my grandchildren’s presents got stuck in a postal strike here. Maybe next year they’ll make it on time.
Now we have the year ahead to consider and the year past for reflection. At my age my old address book is full of the names of folk no longer here. It’s part of ageing to reconcile yourself to this. So, I know how hard this time of year it can be for people on their own especially as bad weather may mean staying indoors.
That brings me to the issue of the Winter Fuel Allowance and the importance that at least the Scottish Government’s commitment (should its budget pass in the spring) to providing for those not entitled to the UK benefit if not on Pension Credit, to at least £100. For people like me, who can afford their gas and electricity then I know like me, many will simply donate to local charities.
Then there are the WASPI women (Women Against State Pension Inequality) who find that Labour now in power have reneged on their commitment to compensate them. It’s not that these women think they should have a pension earlier than men but that it was done in such a draconian fashion (and an independent ombudsman report supports this) that they were ill-prepared for this financial change. 2.6 million women were affected and the report recommended between £1000 to £2950 per claim. I cannot fathom why Sir Keir Starmer and Rachael Reeves went for pensioners.
Next came families restricted to benefits for two children. Tough if you had more. Called the Two Child Benefit Cap, it was brought in by the Tories (that you would expect) and continued now by Labour. What it amounts to is targeting the vulnerable. Now while the SNP government can mitigate that and the Winter Fuel Allowance (which means less of course for our public services) it cannot for the WASPI women as pensions are wholly reserved.
But anyway, is that what devolution is for? To mitigate unjust Westminster policies? So, I look to 2025 and holding Labour to account for what amounts to a deception, sleight of hand. It promised change and jings we are getting it. Not quite the change pensioners, those with more than two children, the farmers under siege for Inheritance Tax and businesses being lumbered with higher NI they or we expected.
Tweet Share on Facebook
