BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

IF YOU live outside South Devon, England, you probably won't have seen my Torbay Times Pensioners Platform column for September-October 2015, so here it is....

 

IN RECENT WEEKS further evidence has emerged showing that Britain’s seniors are being systematically targeted by high pressure sales techniques. However, the organisations behind those often unscrupulous methods have got it all wrong. We UK pensioners are nowhere near as well off as they believe us to be. In fact, the wholly inaccurate but, nevertheless, widely held perception that the Baby Boomer generation has accumulated wealth at the expense of the younger generations, is now being roundly condemned and refuted by a powerful group of charities.

Why, even the celebrity cook Jamie Oliver has changed his tune. Not long ago, he was blaming UK seniors in general, and the Baby Boomer generation in particular, for all that is wrong with Britain today. Now, on the front page of the September edition of Saga magazine (above) he’s pictured next to a caption that reads. “We’re getting it wrong with our older people.” Better late than never Mr Oliver!

But let’s get back to the charities working to dismantle the belief that we UK pensioners have never had it so good. The charities involved are Age UK; the Alzheimer’s Society; Carers UK and the International Longevity Centre, and they’ve called themselves the Ready for Ageing Alliance. Together, they have compiled a report which suggests the term “Baby Boomer” is a potentially dangerous generalisation, as it covers a diverse group of people who only have age in common.

The report also claims that there is a “growing media perception” that the Baby Boomer generation has an easy life, at the expense of young people. The resulting impression is that all Baby Boomers are comfortably-off, yet we’re only too happy to grab every cash hand-out from the government, while the younger generations are left to pick-up the tab. According to the Alliance (and, no doubt, the vast majority of we Baby Boomers too), this is a myth, but giving it substance through the media has the potential to hurt both young and old alike. The Alliance has, therefore, focused on this and a number of other myths it wishes to dispel.

Firstly, there is a common misconception that Baby Boomers will enjoy a comfortable retirement because of their generous pensions. However, the Ready for Ageing Alliance report argues this is a myth. Around 28% of those aged 55-64 – approximately two million people – have no private pension savings whatsoever. According to the report, even those who do have a private pension are likely to discover it won’t go far. On average, such a pension will equate to an annual income of around £7,500 and, as the report adds, such a sum is “woefully short of what is needed to secure an adequate income in retirement.”

On the subject of early retirement, the Ready for Ageing Alliance report is similarly scathing, by refuting the claim that Baby Boomers are so well off they can retire early. This is simply not the case, and the report confirms that nearly 75% of people between the ages of fifty and state pension entitlement age are still in employment, while just seven in one hundred are inactive because they have retired.

Then there’s the old bone of contention relating to housing wealth. Baby Boomers are widely perceived as having gained the biggest advantages as a result of the housing boom. But that’s not true either, because the report shows that, out of the owner-occupier homes lived-in by someone aged between 55 and 64, less than half are owned outright. Moreover, almost a quarter of that same age group are in rented accommodation, and that’s up from just 18% ten years ago.

 

Many of us will have seen the tongue-in-cheek car sticker saying, “I’m spending my children’s inheritance”, and the Alliance report confirms that Baby Boomers are being accused of just that. However, the report goes-on to suggest this is unfair, because some people have limited wealth, while others plan to bequeath money to their loved ones in their wills. This point is reinforced in the report through verified statistics showing that a mere 20% of grandparents in England aged over fifty passed-on cash totalling nearly £650 million to their grandchildren in 2010.

 

And while we’re on the subject of facts and figures, the Baby Boomer generation is often accused of being selfish. Thankfully, the Alliance report goes some way to disproving that claim too, by pointing-out that there are around 1.5 million people aged 65-74 who volunteer. Yes, and I’m one of ‘em! And I volunteer because, it’s not only keeping my mind active, but it’s also keeping other people entertained. At the age of 69 that’s worth more to me than any pay packet.

So … better late than never … the myths about the cushy life we Baby Boomers are living are, at last, being exposed for what they really are … pure fantasy! And it’s all thanks to the Ready for Ageing Alliance.

Photo: courtesy of Pixabay.com

THEY'RE ALRIGHT JACK !

IF YOU DON'T live in South Devon, England you probably won't have seen my Pensioners Platform column in the August-September 2015 edition of the Torbay Times newspaper.  So here it is:-

 

THEY’RE ALRIGHT JACK!

WHAT a month it has been! No sooner had I submitted my copy for the July-August Pensioners Platform column when along came Chancellor George Osborne and announced in his Budget that the BBC would fund free TV licences for the Over 75s. But I have a question: wouldn’t such a move give the BBC every excuse it ever needed NOT to cater for the more mature, more discerning listeners and viewers?

Soon after the Budget statement, that well-known Left-leaning luvvie Joan (Baroness) Bakewell was urging all Over 75s to pay the TV licence fee anyway to “help save” the BBC. Well, she would say that wouldn’t she. As if we needed a lecture from someone who isn’t exactly an average UK pensioner? Paying-out £145.50 for an annual TV licence may come easy to Baroness Bakewell, but she can rest assured it’s a sizeable chunk of cash for the average UK pensioner aged 75 or older. Indeed, such a sum would come-in very useful to many pensioners, for far more important things like heating and nourishing meals in the winter months.

When all is said and done on the TV licence debate, the fact remains that most of us have been digging deep into our pockets each year for decades, simply to fund a profligate BBC. Yes, by all means, compel the corporation to fund a free TV licence for the Over 75s, but – as I wrote in last month’s column – surely it’s time we ten million-plus UK seniors were entitled to something more? A dedicated national radio station and TV channel catering exclusively for us would be a good start.

As if to add injury to Baroness Bakewell’s insult, on July 17, we learned that Prime Minister Cameron’s government had reneged on a manifesto promise to cap care home costs at £72,000 by April of next year. That pledge has, apparently, been shelved until 2020, which means it will probably never be passed into law. So, every pensioner with assets of more than £23,250 will have to pay the full cost of any care they receive. That may not be a problem for a Member of Parliament or a member of the House of Lords, but it’s a major worry for the rest of us.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there because, as the weeks passed by, we were also entreated to news reports about the £172 taxi fare handed-over by House of Commons Speaker John Bercow for a trip of little over half a mile. Then there were revelations about the peer Baroness Wilcox, who can – if she so wishes – walk just 200 yards from her home to the House of Lords each day to claim an attendance allowance of up to £300 (Plymouth Herald July 29); plus the three billionaire peers – Lords Paul; Kirkham and Grantchester – who, according to a Daily Mail expose on August 1, still claim their daily £300 simply for turning-up.

On top of all that, over the past month or so, many of us will have seen the shameful photo of peers slumbering during an important debate. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we then learned of Prime Minister Cameron’s determination to populate the House of Lords with even more peers; plus … well, I think you’ll get my drift by now. Seriously, though, it’s a mess isn’t it? And what’s more, you and I are bank-rolling all this nonsense.

Yes, we tax payers are contributing every penny towards the aforementioned extravagance. Meanwhile, here at street level, we’re faced with the reality of an increasingly disabled NHS. Furthermore, this past month we also learned that some police forces in England don’t even have the resources to investigate burglaries anymore. Then there’s the worrying issue of our porous borders attracting thousands of (have you noticed?) extremely healthy-looking, well clothed, athletic, agile and resourceful migrants, many of whom seem to view us as a soft touch.

And that’s the problem. We Brits ARE a soft touch! So, the next time you hear or read the words “benefits scrounger”, or come across a news item about free-spending politicians please remember YOU helped to provide the cash, through the taxes you pay. That money doesn’t grow on trees, it comes from YOUR pocket, and these days far too many of the recipients are laughing all the way to the bank, shouting … “I’m alright Jack!”

RADIO & TV FOR 10 MILLION SENIORS NOW !!

ON AUGUST 14, 1967 ... 48 years ago today ... the British government of the time outlawed off-shore pirate radio stations, including Radio Caroline and Radio London.

One thing worth remembering, though, about the generation of post-World War II Baby Boomers who made Pirate Radio the success it was, is this ... after the Pirate Stations were banned, we demanded that the BBC create a music radio station for us (Radio 1).

However, we didn't insist on the older generations being ignored. On the contrary we made it clear our Mums, Dads and grandparents should have a music radio station of their own too (Radio 2).

Nearly fifty years later, we Baby Boomers are now the older generation, but we have been ignored to the extent where our share of the UK 'radio cake' has been whittled away to little more than left-over crumbs.

That's why I'm starting a campaign through my Pensioners Platform column in the Torbay Times, also through this Blog and my www.mid20thcenturymusictalk.blogspot.com Blog urging the BBC to create a dedicated national radio station and TV channel to cater exclusively for we UK seniors.

After all, there's more than 10 million of us now ... and that represents a huge, untapped audience!

 Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND...

For those of you who weren't able to see my Pensioners Platform column in the April-May 2015 edition of South Devon's Torbay Times newspaper, here it is in its entirety. By the way, I'm not in the habit of saying "I told you so" but read on:-

 

Benjamin Disraeli (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)

VICTORIAN Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) is credited by many, including the celebrated American author Mark Twain (1835-1910), as having coined the phrase, “There are three kinds of lies: namely lies, damn lies and statistics”. Around 150 years after Disraeli first used the term, life today seems to be governed – some might say blighted – by statistics that invariably prove to be wrong. And that begs one question; can statistics ever be relied upon to be accurate?

Mark Twain (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)

As I write this article, we’re being bombarded by statistics relating to the general election on May 7. Indeed, it will be interesting to see if any pre-election statistical prediction gets anywhere near the actual result. Will we be asking, on May 8, why the pollsters got it so wrong? If so, perhaps our next question should be, what’s the point of polls and statistical projections anyway?

Don’t worry, that’s all I’m going to say about the general election in this month’s column because I would like, instead, to share with you, a worrying example of how statistics can be used to mislead and misinform. Let me explain. On Thursday March 26, I was browsing through a copy of that day’s Daily Mail when, on page three, I came across an article titled, “Cheers to retirement!” Harmless enough you might think, but the sub-title made for rather disturbing reading, and I quote: “Typical OAPs take three holidays a year, splash-out £330 a month, go rambling, and put their feet-up with a glass of wine at 6.30pm every day.”

Excuse me? Typical OAPs? I then read deeper into the article to discover that a survey of retirees over the age of sixty had produced results that claimed 94 per cent of those polled “are enjoying their post-work life, while half said they were having more fun than ever before.”

The article then went-on to talk about, “an average disposable income of £330 per month, which allows them to go on three holidays a year, plus two weekends away, and seventeen day trips. The study also showed that most pensioners eat out three times a month, and one in ten do so more than twice a week.”

By the time I had reached that part of the Daily Mail article, I was wondering how “most” or “typical” pensioners could possibly afford that kind of lifestyle? My wife Jenny and I certainly can’t. In fact, I had to read the reference to three holidays a year several times before realising it wasn’t a misprint. Given the deeply discriminatory cost of travel insurance for the Over 60s today, we’ll be lucky to afford one holiday this year. In truth, Jenny and I have no such plans for 2015, because there are things that need sorting-out in our home, so it’s all about prioritising. In fact, the majority of our retired friends and acquaintances are in exactly the same situation. Surely, then, we are far more representative of average UK pensioners than those referred to as “typical” and “most” in the Daily Mail article?

As if I’d not already seen enough I then read a reference to, “one in twenty pensioners taking at least five weekend breaks in Britain every year”. That was when I lost patience and jumped to the end of the article to find-out who had organised the poll. It came as no surprise to discover the survey was commissioned by Senior Railcard, an organisation which runs a rail discount scheme for train companies. Senior Railcard will, of course, have an interest in how we UK pensioners travel throughout the year but, in the light of what I’d read in the article, I was sceptical. Just how reliable were the survey’s results?

My suspicions were soon justified because, on the very next line, I read that Senior Railcard had polled just 1,260 pensioners. Hang-on I thought: how on earth can a poll of a mere 1,260 out of more than ten million UK pensioners be expected to produce an accurate picture? Who were those 1,260 pensioners anyway? Were they a true cross-section of the UK pensioner community? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yet again, it seems, pollsters (statisticians) have taken the circumstances of a tiny sample of people and massaged the results to produce a distorted bigger picture. That’s what Benjamin Disraeli meant when he stated statistics are the biggest lie. And that’s why we should, perhaps, treat all polls with suspicion. In truth, some UK pensioners may be able to afford three holidays a year, but are “most” or “typical” UK pensioners in that fortunate position? I doubt it very much.

 Cheers to Retirement? (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)