by Simon Bottery, Director of Fundraising, Policy and Communications
So now we know the solution to the mystery of Iain Duncan Smith's missing speech. He shelved the announcement of a flat rate pension at the Age UK conference because he didn't want to/was not allowed to steal the Chancellor's Budget thunder.
Except that the sound turned out to be not so much thunder as the vague echo of music we've already heard. Once again the government said little beyond the fact that it was considering the options, adding that any scheme would not apply to current pensioners. The figure of £140 was quoted again but without any clue as to whether this was at today's prices or some future date. So what on earth is going on? I don't pretend to know, but on this evidence you can expect the next installment to come not in any official way but as an unattributable briefing to a Sunday paper. Government by spin, anybody?
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Would like to claim an 'I told you so' by referring to my (as it proves) prescient twitter blog the day IDS failed to commit himself to the £140 - he was patently gagged that day by GO who wanted to bag the glory (if that's what it is) as a nice headline for Budget Day. Why were several nationals briefed that day to predict IDS would make an announcement? Probably some unhappy bods in DWP let it slip. The battle ground should now be: if not now for a single, more sensible basic pension, when? GO said in his speech that the current system is messy and the new system wouldn't cost any more...
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