Reform will regret its commitment to the pensions triple lock |
Reform UK has just made what could turn out to be an enormous error. Its Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, has committed the party to retaining the ‘triple lock’ on pensions, whereby the state pension rises each year by either inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is greater. This follows a period in which Nigel Farage had suggested that the policy was ‘up for discussion’.
It is easy to see the attraction of committing yourself to the triple lock. A recent poll by Lord Ashcroft suggested that six in 10 voters support the policy. What’s more, pensioners tend to be enthusiastic voters. The trouble is that whatever support that the triple lock has now, it is going to look like a very different story when, as is increasingly likely, Britain finds itself in the midst of a serious sovereign debt crisis, possibly on the scale of that which afflicted Greece in 2010. Then, the conversation about public........