Anne and Stephen on GB News (Image: GB News)
GB News suffered a hiccup in its broadcasting this morning (January 18) as an interview was suddenly cut short. and were at the helm of the news channel’s breakfast show when things quickly turned south.
They welcomed on Paul Richards, former special adviser, and pension expert Tom McPhail. With the guests they debated whether or not the pension should be means-tested as Downing Street refuses to rule it out on the pension .
Stephen asked if it was “realistic” to “not rule anything out”. He went on to point out that Sir “couldn’t rule out looking at changes himself in the future”.
Paul said: “Labour has said that it will protect the on pensions, but that’s a pretty major early commitment. It’s also said that there is going to be a review of private pensions, state pensions and things like fuel allowance and other top ups.
“So those are an ongoing conversation.” The show guest addd that the pension being means tested “sounds like a very worrying development”.
The interview was cut short due to a technical blunder (Image: GB News)
Anne asked how sustainable the government’s controversial plans are. Tom replied: “The only thing that’s going to get us out of the situation that we’re in now is economic growth.
“Because the sustainability of providing for our elderly for the very long term is a huge challenge for whoever is in power.”
He added that no one thinks the is sustainable, continuing: “What no one quite knows is how we replace it and what we move to.
“You always need a system that incentivices people to make self provision and save their own money on top of .”
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The host said it was such a shame that the debate was cut short (Image: GB News)
Stephen pointed out that with more than half of pensioners relying on to make up 50% of their income, it means that you “can’t do anything now”.
Anne threw another question out to one of the guests, who had appeared on the show via videolink, when she noticed that something was wrong. After a moment of silence, she pointed out: “Oh, he’s paused there. Is he not hearing me?”
Stephen added: “No he’s gone,” before his co-host continued: “The image has frozen. Yes. Oh dear, what a shame.”