With Tony Blair we must go back to his first pre-election pronouncement in 1996, where one can first identify the commencement of his continuous lies, not only in our most sacred House of Commons, but to the general public in his many deliverances, which have now caught him out to be, what he is, - a persistent liar . We quote from a letter he wrote on 4 the September 1996 ........
"We are carefully looking at proposals to guarantee pensioners a decent income in retirement so that we can end means testing for for pensioners once and for all and get rid of the ' EVIL' of pensioners poverty." ........It is now obvious to us all that there was no truth intended in that statement, which was made only to dupe the people, so as to assist with his election campaign.
Despite this electioneering pledge he did none of those things. In fact his government increased 'means testing' to its highest level ever. So much so that now some 40% of U. K. resident State pensioners, for a variety of reasons, are not in receipt, of these means tested credits.
Over many decades our governments have been constantly advised, by all those organisation concerned, about the welfare of the elderly. To ensure that all State pensioners receive a proper standard of living, so as to survive with dignity and without fear of poverty, a standard pension should be paid across the board . Indeed Tony Blair knows this to be right and has simply reneged on his pledge. Recall the promise (Click on link to read)
"..We are carefully looking at proposals ....so we can end means testing".
This clearly shows Tony to be a very thorough person - it has already taken him EIGHT years and he is still considering it - what concentration he displays!. Lets hope it is worth waiting for Tony - because we could have built almost FOUR Eiffel tower´s, in less time than your unfinished project has so far taken (as at Oct 2004). (For the record the Eiffel Tower took
2 years, 2 months
and 5 days to complete - and that was in the late 1800´s)
Further, he has attacked ExPat U. K. State pensioner's pensions, merely because they have exercised their right of 'free' movement within the EU. And he sees them as a soft target.
ExPat pensioners, who rely upon their pensions to feed, clothe and house themselves, are not only below the U. K. standard of the poverty line, set at circa £105. per week by our government, they are also below the Spanish poverty line. Many U. K. state pensioners are now worse off than their U. K. counterpart by almost 30%.
The European Union put in place rules to protect pension provision. So how did his government achieve this discrimination, which is prohibited by E U. Regulations.
It was achieved by cunning and deceit, just like any tax dodger, the Blair government found a way to circumnavigate E U. Regulations. By declaring the 'Pension Credit' to be a means tested income and then claiming this replaces, 'minimum income guarantee' and is classed as income support.
It should be noted that to date no other Member State has attempted to adopt this provision by such a disgraceful and deceptive course of action.
What else has he done so as to further silence U. K. expatriates, be they pensioners or not. He has reduced their right to vote as an 'Overseas' voter by a further 5 years. This has meant that albeit, as a U. K. citizen with a European passport, many will now have no right to vote in Central Government anywhere within the E U. As such E U. Citizens will therefore, have no proper democratic voice over their destiny.
This government under, Tony Blair has constantly lied and lied over the truth of figures it has presented to us. The State of the Health Service is a good example, as we now know that the hospital waiting lists for surgery were falsified. Crime figures have been consistently falsified. He employed so-called 'Spin doctors' for this purpose.