Labour’s offer to ‘compensate’ women in their sixties is just an election bribe
WASPI protests, 2018. (Shutterstock)
By dangling a Christmas present of £15,000 each on average to 3.7 million women, Labour has offered the biggest and most brazen election bribe in British history. A grand total of £58 billion would be distributed among women born between 1950 and 1960, the group deemed to have suffered most when the state pension age for women was raised to 65 and soon to 66.
Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, Section 113, it is an offence to give money “to induce any voter to vote or refrain from voting”. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell deserve to be prosecuted for their naked attempt to bribe a key demographic with vast sums of money that McDonnell freely admits would have to be borrowed.
In other words, the bill for this inducement would be paid by the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the women he proposes to compensate for an “injustice” of which the majority are unaware. The term “Waspi” (Women Against State Pension Injustice) has been coined by a tiny group of campaigners who claim to represent an entire generation — not just women born in the 1950s, but every woman who might have benefited from the lower state pension age that women used to enjoy.
Hitherto there was a political consensus on the need, not merely to equalise the pension age between men and women, but to raise that age in line with longevity. Labour is now proposing to freeze the pension age at 66, which would cost the Exchequer another £60 billion by 2040. Yet despite claims by the present Labour leadership that the Tories are to blame for robbing women of their pensions, it was a Labour government that raised the pension age to 66. During the 13 years of Blair and Brown, there was no question of reversing the Major government’s decision to equalise male and female pension ages — a step that the European Union would sooner or later have forced Britain to take.
Given that women live longer than men, though the gap in life expectancy is gradually narrowing, it is arguable that women benefit more than men from the state pension to the tune of many billions every year. Whatever case there may once have been for an age differential based on gender, in the 21st century it no longer applies.
The electoral implications of Labour’s offer, deliberately timed to upstage the Tory manifesto launch, are potentially huge. If a substantial proportion of these 3.7 million women were to be seduced by the blandishments of Corbyn and McDonnell, it could swing the result. That is by no means unlikely. All the Waspi women would receive £100 for each week of pension “lost”. Some 300,000 women would apparently receive a total of £31,000 each, spread over five years. Even the average of £15,000 is, for most voters, a great deal of money. Nothing on this scale has ever been offered as a handout in the last weeks of an election campaign before.
The timing of the Labour offer means that there is little opportunity left for proper scrutiny. The Conservatives may decide to ignore it, fearing that any criticism they make will merely draw attention to what spin doctors call a “retail offer”. But those most affected are in their sixties, many of them swing voters. This is a direct threat to the Tory heartlands.
It is also possible that such an obvious bribe will backfire, as the target audience digests the fact that the largesse being dangled in front of them is fools’ gold. Not only will the money be borrowed (assuming that a Corbyn government’s credit is good enough), burdening posterity with debt and interest, but the Waspis — many of whom are quite prosperous — would find that their windfall was soon confiscated by other tax rises targeting the middle class. For example, McDonnell would reverse George Osborne’s recent reform of inheritance tax, charge capital gains tax on second homes at the same rate as income tax, and abolish the marriage allowance. It is also possible that women would find that actually qualifying for the payments turns out to be a bureaucratic nightmare. The potential not only for red tape but also for fraudulent claims is enormous.
Cynics may say that there is nothing new about politicians attempting to bribe electorates with their own money. But this Labour policy stinks. It is a straightforward cash bribe dressed up as a pension rebate. All those, women as well as men, who do not benefit have every right to be furious. Those who do benefit should reflect on whether theirs is the most deserving cause, compared to other injustices. This regressive redistribution of wealth would do nothing to redress the problems caused by an ageing population. It is a scandalous and corrupt piece of electioneering that deserves to be rejected resoundingly.
