Pensions: Forget the manifestos and look at the politicians

This month British voters took out their machines gun and fired at will. Ed Miliband – forced to resign. Nick Clegg – humiliated. Ed Balls – catastrophic defeat. Vince Cable – finished. Steve Webb – humbled. Gregg McClymont – destroyed.
On top of the heap of political career carcasses stands David Cameron. Master of all he surveys after delivering the first Conservative majority victory for 23 years.

The focus now turns to the Conservative manifesto and what personal finance goodies or nightmares it contains. But that’s wrong.

Sure, there are treats on inheritance tax for the family home and fiendishly complex proposals to cut pension tax relief. It also promises to increase the income tax personal allowance to £12,500 and the 40p threshold to £50,000 by 2020.

All important but a manifesto is nothing more than a dry set of ideas that a new Government will try to introduce. Some policies will happen, others will be quietly dropped. It gives us a flavour of the next five years but nowhere near the entire story.

What was the biggest political move on personal finance in the last parliament? Pension freedoms. Not in any manifesto.

Or what about the flat rate state pension, pensions charge cap or stamp duty reforms? Not one of them was in either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos in 2010. Nobody was even talking about it in 2010.

George Osborne didn’t even mention his shock pension reforms and stamp duty changes until the day he announced them.

That’s why it matters that Webb and McClymont have been gunned down by voters. For example, it was McClymont’s focus on charges that forced the Government into introducing a cap while Webb’s personal drive for pot follows member has ushered in an entirely new transfer system.

Anyone who says we should focus more on policy than personality in politics is wrong. Studying each parties’ manifestos before deciding how to vote is narrow-minded.

The personalities and preferences of ministers provide us with a much greater insight into how policy will shift and swerve in the next five years than pre-election policy pledges.

In personal finance, two individuals now matter more than anyone else - Chancellor George Osborne and pensions minister Ros Altmann.

In an era of super-low interest rates, Osborne has been driven to a radical savings policy and he has got a taste for it.

Reforms to Isas, pensions and savings taxes have won plaudits among middle earners and Osborne is likely to go further.

Get ready for more rabbits in hats in future Budgets. He could merge Isas and pensions to put his reforms on steroids. He could get the ball rolling on merging income tax and national insurance, echoing the major income tax reforms of his political hero, Nigel Lawson.

Meanwhile Altmann’s campaigning work has focused on failed workplace pension schemes and a broken annuity market.

Will she continue to champion them by pressuring the FCA in to annuity action or raising the Pension Protection Fund levy to help those hit by bankrupt company schemes? Or will she move on to new areas such as a drawdown charge cap?

Examining the characters of Osborne and Altmann - and the shadow pensions minister, if they are as engaged as McClymont - is the greatest insight into pensions policy for the next half-decade.

They can shape the national debate on pensions like no one else and will do. It is an enormous power and one that will change attitudes as well as laws.

Their whims and preferences; mistakes and triumphs will do more to shape financial planning in the next five years than almost anything else. Forget the manifestos and look at the politicians.

The poisonous hatred from parts of the left shames Labour

The reaction of some parts of the left to an emphatic Conservative victory has been shameful and embarrassing.
There was anti-austerity protests in London (along with some rioting and vandalism) on the 70^th anniversary of VE Day.  “Fuck Tory scum” graffiti was sprawled over a Whitehall monument to women of the Second World War.

Parts of Facebook and Twitter has exploded with pure hatred about a Tory victory. There was the viral image of a garden centre owner who said he would charge Tory voters 10% more on all their purchases while Ukip votes were not welcome.

Can you imagine the fury if there was a similar sign outside a garden centre banning Labour voters? Is the Conservative brand so toxic that it has become the only socially acceptable form of discrimination? The only allowable thought crime?

I have seen a number of social media posts and remarks from people who now refuse to be friends with anyone who voted Conservative.

One Conservative voting friend explains how he was berated down the phone by another friend when he explained he had voted Tory. He said he the party was more in line with his own personal interests and this provoked venom.

Another friend who has always voted Labour in the past but just couldn’t choose Miliband this time has been forced to lie about her vote.

“I voted Tory and I feel like I have great reasons but I haven’t admitted it to anyone,” she says. “It’s amazing how angry everyone is. People don’t ask me who I voted for – everyone assumes I voted Labour they don’t even ask. It’s terrifying that people think only evil people can vote Tory and that there’s no way anyone they associate themselves with would.”

Another friend text me: “How come everyone is saying goodbye to the NHS because of David Cameron?”

I told her the Conservative policies of a seven day doctor service and an extra £8bn a year spending by the end of the parliament. But that they were not properly funded and some had fears that the Conservative don’t really believe in the NHS despite their strong insistence they do.

“I thought so, I have just been reading his manifesto and was wondering how saying that was even justified,” she said. “It’s weird seeing people’s reactions.”

Lying isn’t justified. Neither is questioning Cameron’s love for his late disabled son, Ivan, just because he chooses to explain how it has influenced his politics. Another disgusting smear we see all too often when trying to damage the Tories on the NHS.

Is it anyone wonder millions of people are so ashamed of voting Tory that they wouldn’t even privately admit it to pollsters?

The 12 million people who voted Conservative look at parts of the left, including Labour supporters, and are bemused to see themselves called selfish scum or racist. They literally do not recognise the way they are caricatured.

The rage-filled left secretly want the Conservatives to win so they can complain for the next five years and shake their fists at the nasty Tories. They see traitors everywhere and blame their inability to persuade others on anyone but themselves.

Former Labour general secretary Peter Watt, in an article republished this week on Labour Uncut, talked about the arrogance of the left denouncing anyone who doesn’t fit with our “rigid moral code”. He couldn’t have said it any better.

Most in the Labour party are appalled at the reaction of a few fruitcakes on the left and see little association with the mainstream party.

Well, fairly or not it does taint the mainstream party so let’s condemn it whenever we get the chance.

And we should look at ourselves too. I’ve been quick to brand Ukip a racist party based on Nigel Farage comments about not wanting to live next door to Romanians or that he would abolish race relations laws among other slurs.

If there is racism then let’s call it racism but the vast majority of nearly four million Ukip voters are not racist. They simply have a different view and by shrilly denouncing them all as racists en bloc we are not going to win them back. And it’s not fair.

Of course I am disappointed by the defeat but Britain comprehensively rejected Labour. Let’s think about why that is rather than blame the voters for the crazy idea of “false consciousness”.

There is lots of the Tory agenda to oppose. Repealing the Human Rights Act, flirting with EU exit, tacitly backing fox hunting, lack of action on exploitative zero hours contracts or spraying around welfare cuts because it is politically easy. And much else besides.
But the left can do that without slipping into the type of grievance culture associated with Ukip and the SNP. Otherwise Labour will quickly come to be seen as Britain’s truly nasty party.