I tried but the response was that I did it in 1990 when my contract ended and should have asked for it to be changed by 2000. Yep, German bureaucracy at its best too!
I think there were many more sighs than my own when I read that in several papers.
Ah - but that's why they need the payrise you see - to help them give up fiddling. Apparently. :)
Plus fares paid, lunch allowances and all the rest of it. Then they have the audacity to fiddle a bit more on top.
Yes Jonathan, in my madness I deferred receiving it until I am 70, not anticipating my health falling apart well before that. If I had been having that since 60 my 18 years of payment in would be giving back quite a lot more than my UK one. We live (sic) oblivious of reality smacking us in the face one day - I made a real ba**s up...
plus I don't think nurses and teachers get free TV licences and their house insurance paid if they "have" to have a 2nd home in London....!
Favouritism ;-)
So the likes of David, see above, and I are paranoid are we? I say we are keeping an eye on the ball and neither of us are affected by the delusions that paranoia tends to bring with it. We are absolutely cogently following trends and only anticipating what might be. I cannot speak for David, but we could be wrong and no doubt he like I both hope so.
I said the same as your first paragraph briefly Jonathan, but you have added good detail. Why does the UK not use the EU scheme and not put people straight on JSA? I am lost on the logic behind that.
How come you say I only get a small part of my pension from the UK? Apart from if I get any work in the future, I have no other income at present. So, what do you know that I apparently do not know?
Paul Dacre is the best paid UK newspaper editor. He takes home almost £1.8m a year and got an over inflation pay rise of 5% for the previous financial year. Dacre recently sold 37,861 Daily Mail & General Trust shares at £9.18p a share, making £347,564. He can afford to hate us all and continue to pixelate nipples to his heart's content. He is also now 65 since November and has said nothing about his pension or winter fuel payment that he no doubt most desperately needs. But there you go, c'est la vie...
As an unemployed ,lesbian Muslim I get to be hated after 4 questions. Why is that?
Old git and proud of it!!! As a retired Brit expat living in France should I want to go back to the UK my wife would already have to be interviewed as to suitability, including a language element, here before she good get a visa to enter the UK. Our child would not. I would also have to provide minimum earnings evidence, along with evidence that we are actually living together and marriage alone for 5.5 years is not enough. Here in France my wife is we think on the verge of getting a 10 year Carte de Residant and has the right to work. However like Brian I am thoroughly apprehensive of where this is going. I may not be around that much longer compared to my wife and child, but I am considerably concerned on their behalves. My great grandfather was welcomed into the UK as a refugee prior to 1850 and it would seem the task is becoming rather harder. Will the UK turn out to be an isolated island of extremists? What's happened to the benefits of widening genes? You only need to look at isolated communities to realise .......now, wait a minute.....are IDS's eyes too close together....?
Brilliant! This old git was definitely hated by the Daily Mail.......................... but I'll still keep on reading it for my daily fix of pixelated nipples;-)
In reality it is the Tory riposte to UKIP who they fear will deprive them of a landslide victory at the next general election!
Brian, you are right, there is probably only 1% getting huge figures, but this is what gets noticed not the average person on a £150 per week.
I would gladly stand as a politician but as it is a closed shop the average man will not get a look in unless he spends all his life kissing up to politicians.
Personally, if the MPs get a 11% pay rise I would support an indefinite General Strike.
there would be support out there. Every one would have to stand together, as you say important personnel are only getting a pay rise of 1% and the cost of living is going up at about 4%.
There is the propaganda using the exception as the rule. Not many people will get £750 and from what I have read the people who are have often been entire families of mainly refugees. That needs to be separated from the EU issue to begin with, but naturally it needs to be looked at for good reasons.
I share your lack of faith in politicians. The 11% pay rise gets me too. Now, Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), refusing to back down on that recommendation saying the public supports it. Oh yeah! Nurses and teachers have been told to accept pay rises of less than 1% a year. They are also working for the public, has Kennedy thought about proportionality?
I didn't say that, nor would I imagine that they would even try that. The proposal is though to test those who do not have jobs who seek benefits who are already there under certain criteria as well as new arrivals. Underlying that is the fact that like it or not the UK signed up to freedom of movement within the EU which includes going to look for jobs. We, you and I for instance, benefit from that agreement. The UK seems to be singing from another sheet entirely.
Are you going to be a beneficiary of France or UK pensions or benefits Cate, when the former or the need for the latter arise? I am not receiving UK benefits but do have the basic pension as of the last few weeks. It naturally touches a nerve when one set of proposals from the DWP who are trying to get rid of as many people as possible then move as they have done here in defiance of EU law.
I might just ask the question you asked back: is it unreasonable that people coming to live and work in France (or any other country) are able to communicate adequately? I understand exactly what you are asking and think it it applies all over, but are UK citizens any better? Hohum, let us pass with a sigh perhaps.
Then there is the question that remains a mystery for me. Why go to the UK looking for benefits? They are pretty well down with the lowest in the EU, so why? Minimum wages are pathetic and zero hours contracts are not an incentive, or...? Rents are high, blah, blah, blah... It is, of course, not all bad but I am not very sure what the good is because I am not there and in the situation of the many job seekers, native or not. Under EU law an immigrant seeking work in another EU country should have benefits paid by the home country for the first six months. There is already a system in place for doing that but the UK doesn't use it. Instead puts them on JSA. Why?
Anyway, it all looks like playing the right music to win back people who are going over to UKIP, who are also against pensioners getting any form of 'benefits' if they live abroad - although pensions are part of a pension fund (that Gordon Brown borrowed from but has never been paid back) that is not a benefit. However, the DWP has the mission of saving dosh and that is paramount.
Everybody - there is no truth in the rumour Cate and I are having an affair - it was just a little fling ;-)
under European law a person from the European union has a right to live in any EEC country, people are not being kicked out of England they are having their benefits stopped as some can claim about £750 per week.
the English government are just following the way the rest of Europe works.
All the Conservatives are doing is trying to raise this issue and let the English public know how many people they have stopped coming to the UK esp from the newer EEC countries.
Wait until Scotland gets independence, are the borders going to closed the oil and gas shut off, I doubt it.
It is the MP's getting ready for the next election.
Personally I have no faith or trust in any politician all they are doing is feathering their own nest, not many have complained about they 11% pay rise, as a politician you should be serving your country and it's people not the other way around.
Have to agree with you Tim, Having owned his own business in France for most of his adult working life my OH is entitled to retirement (and has been told by the quack that he is not to continue working). Needless to say the wonderful RSI who have received vast sums from us over the years have not processed the claim - three years now and still no progress. My particular highlight as when we were told by the Conseil Général that if we should go back to the UK. Hmmmmmm, seems that this policy is already in place!
:)
Well personally, I think any French migrants to the UK should be treated the same as the French treat us.
Health care on demand without working - ha!
NHS card for treatment - send us you birth certificate translated by a sworn translator. Oops we lost it and it has been more than three months - try again.