Was Gordon Brown Partially Responsible For Labour’s Defeat In The 2019 General Election?
When automatic enrolment into pensions came in, I was very much in favour, as I feel everybody should have a pension.
There is a section called Automatic Enrolment in the Wikipedia entry called Pensions in the United Kingdom.
If you read the section, this is the last paragraph.
Between the introduction of auto enrolment and April 2016, “the overall proportion of eligible employees saving into a workplace pension increased from 55% to 78%” with the largest increases found in the private sector.
Consider.
- When I started work in the 1960s, the average man and the few women on the factory floor weren’t very well educated. But now, they are much more likely to have a few good qualifications.
- Most too will be computer-savvy to a level, that would have been unimaginable to their forerunners in the 1960s.
- Newpapers too, from the Sun and the Mirror to the Times, \guardian, Telegraph and FT, now offer easy-to-read financial advice to help everyone manage their money better.
Many working people today have a pension, that although some didn’t want it, they probably feel could be a help in retirement.
So did Labour’s reckless or ambitious spending plans, frighten many of their traditional supporters?
They certainly frightened me!
Would the election result have been different, if Gordon Brown hadn’t started the modern pension with the Pensions Act of 2008 and had left well enough alone?
As my quote said earlier in 2016, just over three-quarters of eligible employees are saving into a workplace pension.
Some may have been subscribing for over ten years now and they will feel protective of that amount pf money!
The Anonymous Widower 
In 1997 Gordon Brown was chancellor and imposed corporation tax on the roll up inside pension schemes. This stealth tax was reckoned to gather ~£5 billion pa even then. Whilst payments into pension funds remained tax free (now limited) this had the effect that the roll up inside the fund would be taxed twice – once when inside and again when paid out as a pension. At the time this amounted to a marginal tax rate of 46% for a basic rate tax payer – quite a disincentive to something the government was trying to encourage. Even now it is 33%.
The smart money moved into buy to let, or as several of my neighbours have done when trading up, keeping their first home as an investment. Unlike a pension fund property profits were only taxed on realisation, the property could be borrowed on, sold or bequeathed and until recently no need to take a compulsory annuity on retirement, which could see your pension pot wiped out by an early death.
Earlier problems with non-transferable work pensions and reduced benefits in SERPS meant I steered well away from pension investments.
Comment by R. Mark Clayton | December 22, 2019 |
I certainly think that a Corbyn would have found a way to get their hands on pension funds or at least control their investment. I do think that as nearly 80 percent have a pension tied to their job it had an effect in the election.
Comment by AnonW | December 22, 2019 |