Because who else could make such a stupid schoolboy error that’s affected so many, so quickly, and without any reason!
In the i newspaper today:
UK Govt: “High numbers of Covid Beta variant in France is the key reason behind new Anglo French travel restrictions”.
French response: (Can’t the UK Govt read?) Stats include data from La Reunion and Mayotte ( 6,000 miles from Paris). Remove them and accurate stats show French mainland is still a great/safe place to visit.
Beggars belief!
Can France remind the UK to exclude remote hot French islands in their calculation of winter heat allowance eligibility for UK citizens in France as well, please?
Just love the timing of your response, just as the UK enters its first +28C heatwave of the year 
IDS, the bombastic idiot who ripped off the UK pensioners in France. Meanwhile he lives as a freeloader in a house his wealthy father-in-law owns. He’s a kept man playing in Westminster. A scab just like the rest of his ERG type colleagues.
This is what you get when you allow a professional political class to form. All from Oxbridge PPE academies, spend a couple of years in some media outfit or as a SPaD and then parachuted into a safe seat somewhere.
Naughty Hellfire Club regulars for the Tories and former ambulance chasing lawyers for Labour.
What’s an SPaD? Is it rude?
Special Advisor
I have written to the Independent asking them to pass this on to Simon Calder, who, presumably, has channels to show up what a nonsense this is.
I haven’t hears back though.
I also mentioned that these stats were used to deprive us of our WFP.
So that everyone understands, a UK pensioner living in Palermo receives a Winter Fuel Payment of £200
One living in Dunkirk gets nothing…
Absolutely correct, Richard! Frustrating, isn’t it?
It is being suggested today that Doris - despite promising the contrary at the last elections - is considering a 1% increase in NI contributions.
Two aspects immediately come to mind (I’m sure others will develop) 
Who would still think it was a good idea trusting running the Country to Doris and his cronies?
I would like to say Doris thinks his appointment was a good idea, yet he’s since been reported as saying “why on earth am I doing this job”
because he got rid of all the talent before the last election?
If I was a working UK pensioner I would think it fair to pay whatever the full NI rate is on my earnings. It’s just tax no one is fooled it goes to pension and nhs anymore as the money is not ringfenced. So everyone should pay it.
I do agree that employers should get reduced NI on their contributions if they do things to improve issues such as employing younger people in a certified program that will train them or perhaps if they employ people over a certain age or disabled or other groups that would struggle to gain employment
If you want to know what National Insurance is spent on it is all here:
It’s ringfenced, in the sense it’s a separate pool of money known as The National Insurance Fund, but if the government finds the fund in surplus it can do stuff with it, like invest it. Normally it invests the surplus in the government which is handy for them don’t you think.
Or why on earth did they vote for me?
You might remember that pensioners were encouraged to save for their retirement?
Now the interest rate is nil and how do these pensioners live without the triple lock?
which is probably the next Tory promise to be broken…
I must have been the only person I know to have received good pension advice from LTSB in the early 1980s when I started working:
“The State Pension isn’t going to be enough to retire on in 50 years time. Take out a private pension and put the maximum into any company pension scheme you can join.”
Yes, I received good advice too (can’t remember who) though I probably should have been putting more into it.