Tory MPs call for pension changes to 'Deter early retirement'?

 

Senior Conservative MPs have said the Prime Minister should increase or even scrap the lifetime allowance for pensions, as it acts as a "perverse incentive" for the over-50s to retire early. 

The lifetime allowance currently stands at £1,073,100, having been reduced from a high of £1.8m just over a decade ago. Pensioners are typically taxed 55% on any earnings they withdraw from their pension pot above that amount. 

Damian Green, a former work and pensions secretary, said Rishi Sunak should review the rules in light of the growing labour shortages. Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, added: "We’ve got this lack of joined-up thinking where a workplace benefit is turning into a workplace penalty for the most valuable senior staff."

This problem, highlighted by us here at murky earlier this year is one of the prime reasons that you have difficulty actually seeing your GP in person. More and more GP's are retiring early or reducing their working hours  to stop their retirement savings being stolen by this ultra right wing Tory leadership who want to massively tax cash that has been taxed at source and also had its savings interest taxed to bits.

This dilemma shows exactly why the most ardent Conservatives can't be persuaded to trust this dreadful Tory mob in Government who have let them down and have decided to tax their backsides off. The divisions between the Conservatives and their Tory Masters are widening daily who have not learnt any lessons from the Liberals and their Democrat partners and how, when their divisions were run out in public, ruined their party.

How thick do Northumberland 'Toxic Tories' think its paying public are?

 

Being insular,only talking with friends, backstabbing those on the edge of your scene eventually leads to twisted minds and shocking behaviour, circumstances which led to the downfall of the nation's top tory-boy Boris Johnson. Reading between the lines of the news report linked below proves that adage which applied to the real top Tory to be very close to the truth in picturesque rural Northumberland.

 

Let's look at the history of a company in 'real public ownership', the ownership of the council taxpayers of the County of Northumberland? 

 

The company in question has an easily traceable past, it started out on its journey as a regeneration company, set up by Wansbeck District Council to protect people's former colliery homes and help ordinary folk cope and not be left behind as society changed dramatically from manufacturing, mining and sea fishing into a service sector based economy. It was a brilliant success in the geographically restricted area of Wansbeck District.

When the County of Northumberland was set as the largest unitary rural all purpose council in England, the Wansbeck company was transferred leaving oodles of funds from the sale of its football stadium to help develop a new leisure centre close to the centre of its largest township, Ashington. 

 

These developments were undertaken and delivered by the company ARCH, a metamorphosis of the Wansbeck District Council regeneration company, guided by the Council with Councillors in abundance on its board.

Northumberland Conservatives were very close to ARCH when they power shared with the LibDems but when labour won the 2013 election this successful arms length company was poisoned by the Tories on their ‘Matters’ sites and the well publicised ‘we will close down ARCH’ from Councillor Peter Jackson who sat on the board from 2008 sounded its death knell.

 

But lo and behold after £millions of investigations, false allegations and police involvement it came to light that a £52 overspend had once taken place, but the need for a development company was so necessary that the Tories desperately changed its name to ADVANCE Northumberland and set off down the ‘road to hell’ as they followed the Johnsonite way of working and brought in their mates exposing the Council Owned company not to profits that could do good for the people of the County but into multi million pound lawsuits from gigantic material supply companies and huge compensation payments to outgoing members of staff for putting Johnsonism before people.

 

In the article set out below the North-East of England's top Johnsonite Councillor Richard Wearmouth is openly setting the Company ADVANCE Northumberland on the road to becoming a private enterprise by kicking democracy and the protection of Council taxpayers' cash out of the window.

 

Labour Councillor Mary Murphy is quite right to ask serious questions of Councillor Wearmouth’s motives and hiding behind the Caller review of his teams bullying and infighting holds and much water as a colander as when a member of the public has attempted to ask questions in the Council Chamber at County Hall in public on three occasions regarding these issues Councillor Wearmouth’s Tories have immediately stopped meetings and brought in the Police to remove him from the chamber to protect their not so well hidden secrets and well publicised antics.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/opposition-councillors-call-political-balance-25739743

 

 

 

 

Strong Rumours! Northumberland County Council to seek 500 week road closure to turn Cowpen Road into a back lane similar to their sections of the A1?

 

Following on from having a commercial street, Bowes Street in Northumberland’s largest Town, Blyth, closed for more than a year almost killing off trade in order to remove some planters and mark out some short term parking bays it seems this Tory led County Council and its ‘levelling up for corporate profit’ Government is at it again.

The news that the dualling of a short stretch of the A1 promised by the former Conservative Transport Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan for the last three general elections, has been put back for the fifth time over the last twelve years of a Tory Government in power.

Despite the planned regeneration and modernisation of this stretch of highway being 25Ml short of the Town the former Transport Ministers constituency is centred in, Berwick upon Tweed, the modernisation of this, the longest ‘back lane’ in the UK will still dog the economy of North Northumberland and its Borderlands neighbours until a change of Government settles into place and the need to join the nations of England and Scotland by road up the eastern side of Country is seen as a positive.

Its strongly rumoured by residents of the Town of Blyth that the County Council, famous for investigations, bullying, toxic decision making and secrecy of the first order virtually operating its own official secrets act has decided at one or other of its secret cabinet meetings to apply for a 500 week road closure notice for its busiest highway, Cowpen Road using their Bowes Street experience as a marker.

Taking the County Councils own blurb from its published application to the Highways Agency for cash to develop a bypass for Cowpen Road as base data, 20,000 vehicles a day pass in and out of the Town via this highway. Local have informed us that the disruption caused by high speed broadband cabling and a twenty week dig by Northern Gas Networks will pale into insignificance when the County Council’s slow mo machine begins to narrow the highway by a third and build a cycle lane of motorway proportions for a couple of hundred users a week! 

We here at Murky need to know if these rumours have any truth in them and if they do, how the County Council will insure and compensate its residents from massively increased pollution when more traffic sits at a standstill as it removes right turn zones from the highways to facilitate and appease its Tory Councillors who need to be seen being green anywhere as long as it's not in Morpeth and most of whom rarely if ever visit Blyth.

The Least Deprived Neighbourhoods in Northumberland report illustrates how hard the Council must work to remedy problems.

 

2021 Census data shared with the public has been used to show how much deprivation or how little deprivation areas across England have within their bounds.

This data should be used by Councils to plan where society and investment in that society should be steered and funded.

The local newspaper the Northumberland Gazette ran out very well written articles which explained the census data and where both the most deprived and least deprived neighbourhoods are across the Council’s areas of responsibility. The data covers households and not people but in their latest report covering almost a third of households under the title of least deprived neighbourhoods the number of deprived home
s in those areas is staggering. 

This data does not cover the current period of crisis and raging inflation with the growing poverty and lack of reliance neighbourhoods have when exposed to long term periods of austerity, it is a snapshot in time during 2021 but the information it contains shows how hard the road ahead is for people and how much work Councils and Councillors must put in to help bolster society over the coming decade to show improvement.

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/the-least-deprived-neighbourhoods-of-northumberland-according-to-the-2021-census-3936000

Neighbourhoods                    Least Deprived%                            Deprived%

Longhorsley	63.8	36.2
Capheaton	63.8	36.2
Hepscott	63.8	36.2
Morpeth South	61.4	38.6
Morpeth West	61.4	38.6
Darras Hall	60.4	39.6
Stamford	60.4	39.6
Heddon	60.4	39.6
Ponteland	58.4	41.6
Stocksfield	57.1	42.9
Riding Mill	57.1	42.9
Corbridge	57.1	42.9
Longhoughton	56.6	43.4
Alnmouth	56.6	43.4
Wylam	56.6	43.4
Ovingham	56.6	43.4
Blyth South	55.8	44.2
Haydon Bridge	55.5	44.5
Allendale	55.5	44.5
Cramlington North	54.3	45.7
Cramlington East	54.3	45.7
Hexham	52.4	47.6
Acomb	52.4	47.6
Longframlington	52.2	47.8
Rothbury	52.2	47.8
Blyth Newsham	52	48
Bellingham	51.5	48.5
Otterburn	51.5	48.5
Redesdale	51.5	48.5
Bedlington Town	51.3	48.7
Morpeth North	51.3	48.7
Pegswood	51.3	48.7
Berwick Upon Tweed	50.8	49.2
Holy Island	50.8	49.2
Prudhoe	49.5	50.5
Amble	49.4	50.6
Swarland	49.4	50.6
Shilbottle	49.4	50.6
Belford	48.6	51.4
Seahouses	48.6	51.4
Wooler	48.6	51.4
Cramlington South	48.5	51.5