Four Opposition Leaders Attack It. The Economists Approve.
Kemi Badenoch says the pensions plan is “already falling apart under scrutiny” and means “more tax rises are inevitable”. Nigel Farage says the Prime Minister will “abdicate his responsibility to British pensioners” and should call an election. John Swinney calls it “a bad idea”. Yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation both welcomed it, and a same-day poll put the public behind it.
That split is the story. The fiscal establishment thinks he has done something overdue: the Institute’s Jonathan Cribb said it was “great news that Andy Burnham has neutered the worst element of the triple lock” and “goodbye to the unsustainable ratchet effect”, while the Resolution Foundation’s Ruth Curtice called the lock “a terribly designed policy that has cost far more than originally anticipated and yet failed to reduce pensioner poverty”. The politics run the other way, and Scotland’s First Minister found the sharpest framing: “Scotland has provided free personal care for the elderly without punishing pensioners into the bargain.” Sir Ed Davey dismissed the whole speech as “Starmerism with a veneer of panache”. A poll of 4,503 adults taken the same day found the care service backed by 74% to 11%, and the pension change by 48% to 28% once the two were linked. Watch whether that holds a week.