Dave Brooks

Before I was pensions dave I was in a band. Best days ever (sorry pensions world). Here’s our band camp page if you would ever like to have a nose (ear... you know what I mean). bookharrison.bandcamp.com

On behalf of their client, Zara Sultana, Bindmans Media and Information Law Practise Group requires that I publish the following statement on X, and that such statement must be clearly visible and pinned to my profile for a continuous period of no less than 24 hours: “On 30 March 2026, I published a post on my X account addressed to Zarah Sultana in which I stated that she encourages and incites violence and is friends with terrorists. Those statements are false. I was wrong and offer my sincere apologies to Ms Sultana for the harm and distress caused to her.” It is my very great pleasure to do this, and I reiterate my sincere and repeated offer to meet with Miss Zara Sultana in person to resolve our differences.

What we crave is an old-school government so boring no-one knows their names. Competent, professional. But we're led by a story-hungry media desperate for new drama for sponsored podcasts. If they had their way we'd have a new PM every month, each worse than the last.

@GangsterCinema The guy he stared at looks like a fatter Liev Schrieber and now I’m obsessed trying to work out if it was or not…

Tom Sizemore's menacing glare in the coffee shop scene in Heat was brought about through his extensive training in lethal force. Michael Mann explains "Right here, Sizemore does something very interesting. He had the cold look in his eye, which anybody encountering, communicates without any words or histrionics - lethal potential. It’s a belief in himself as his character, Cheritto, that Sizemore got from the work we did in pre-production. You have to do the work, feel you have the aptitude and the capability of being that lethal, and then the moment's there." Michael Mann’s quote comes from the director’s commentary track on the Heat DVD.

“The country is becoming ungovernable...” The Times's Matthew Syed says constant leadership speculation is making it harder for Prime Ministers to make tough choices. #Newsnight

@David_J_Robbins @dontdelay Definitely felt like a "courageous" statement but given the relatively narrow nature of the commission we could see lots of useful ways to deal with the under savers and some further non-binding, as it were, recommendatoins. I feel like I am arguing with my opening point now!

@PensionsDave @dontdelay Thanks - interesting comment re: implementing the recommendations. Presumably because he is confident the Commission will only want to propose things that HMG is up for doing, rather than giving them a blank cheque.

The state pension has never been intended to be all someone lives on Which is why we spend £billions subsidising workplace and personal pensions Which is why your previous government implemented auto enrolment forcing employers (no matter how small) to contribute to employees pensions More £ from triple lock increases goes to pensioners in millionaire households than it does to pensioners living in poverty If your concern is pensioners on low incomes @KemiBadenoch then triple lock is a very expensive, untargeted way to help them

@dontdelay @David_J_Robbins I feel fairly confident they will suggest it and Torsten said yesterday he would implement the commission's recommendations so by my logic he's saying they will - that's if you agree with my confidence. Highly subjective.

@David_J_Robbins @PensionsDave Thanks. I just saw Steve Webb mention this on LinkedIn. Need to look in more detail

@CashQuestions @TheOfficialJVS @BBC3CR What did you say?

Just been talking to @TheOfficialJVS on @BBC3CR about Tony Blair's proposals for the state pension

@David_J_Robbins @dontdelay I think number 3 is where we’re at, also accepting some horses for courses on day to day political discussion.

1. Nothing that Kemi Badenoch said in that interview commits the Conservatives to Triple Lock indexation in any year of the next Parliament. If she were planning to axe it, she'd want to announce it at a time of her choosing and would need some words to get through interviews in the meantime. 2. It would be insane to offer up any "Tories considering scrapping Triple Lock" distraction on a day otherwise dominated by the debate on the PM appointing Mandelson. So of course her words would err on the side of the Triple Lock being a good thing. 3. That said, we may have reached the point where "support the TL" is seen as synonymous with not being hostile to pensioners. So I increasingly think that, like Reform, they will end up backing it at the next election. It was probably hoped that the Pensions Commission could allow all parties (or at least more than one) to jump together on the TL, like they did on State Pensions Age in 2005. That seems to be looking less likely. 4. Her comment about introducing the TL in response to pensioner poverty is only partly right. Blair/Brown enhanced means-tested support in response to pensioner poverty. That rightly led to a backlash against punishing saving. The earnings link that Conservatives and Labour were committed to at the 2010 election was partly a response to that. The TL came about because it was in the Lib Dem manifesto and, as George Osborne has said, HMT wrongly estimated that the TL would not cost much more in the 2010-2015 Parliament. (The problem is that it usually costs serious money only when the forecasts are wrong.)

@NicoHQ1 @ChefReactions 😋

Whatever he's cooking, I will eat it without hesitation...adore the accent ❤😋

Ed balls all over X on Ed Balls day! Too much.

@westerby1 HLE is an oft misunderstood stat. It isn’t the age at when you’ll get ill it’s the average number of years over a lifetime you’ll be in good health. The unhealthy bits may well come at the end but that’s not definite. Nor is a very clear definition of health.

We’ve dropped down the HEALTHY life expectancy table, not life expectancy! Two different things! One measures how old you’ll be before you become incapacitated in some way, the other looks at when you’re likely to die! x.com/DailyMail/stat…

@AvantiWestCoast Do not understand sending a train to Liverpool packed with people back to Euston. Just sort out the issue and continue the journey. Nonsense. The passengers did not appreciate the manager's tone that heading back was good news.

Beautiful. More please.

I’ve been casually slipping in fake British sayings and words into conversation with my American partner - here’s the one’s she believes:

Turns out i AM a professional footballer after all, exciting times.

Over on LI I've done an article on why the State Pension will be around forever (pay attention young people, stop saying it will go). But it is likely to change. linkedin.com/pulse/why-stat…