Thursday, 26 February 2015

WE'RE IN THE FIRING LINE !

If you weren't able to read my Pensioners Platform column in the Jan-Feb 2015 edition of the Torbay Times, here it is:-


FIRSTLY I wish you a happy and healthy 2015, but make no mistake about it: in the run-up to the general election on Thursday May 7 this year, we UK pensioners are going to be a prime target for politicians of most persuasions, and some sectors of the media too.  Over the past five years of coalition rule, we’ve been threatened with the withdrawal of our bus passes and our winter fuel allowances, among other benefits. Those threats have invariably come from high-ranking politicians, some of whom have also accused us of being cushioned from the austerity measures put in-place by Prime Minister Cameron’s government. And I predict we’re going to hear a lot more of the same over the next few months.

A SHAMEFUL ARTICLE

In fact, the “let’s bash the pensioners” brigade have been getting-up to their tricks already, and here’s the proof. I found this shameful article on-line at AOL Money in early December, and I reproduce it here, word for word:-

“You’ve probably heard older people bemoaning how ‘everything was better in the old days’ but for retirees it seems that everything is also better now, especially when it comes to their financial situation. Most of us are feeling the pinch from Osborne and Company’s austerity measures. You may be someone on a low income who has seen benefits slashed or been subject to the particularly nasty bedroom tax, or a signed-up member of the ‘squeezed middle’, who has been tipped into the higher rate income tax bracket thanks to government tinkering; you may have even lost your full entitlement to child benefit. But one group of people who have not suffered are retirees, who have been fiercely protected from austerity measures by a ring-fencing of their benefits.

Chancellor George Osborne has saved £2.5 billion with his measures but the plan to cut the welfare and pensions bill by £19 billion has been thrown off course by the decision to ‘triple lock’ the state pension, which means it is guaranteed to rise at the highest of inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent.

Coupled with people living longer and it is no surprise there has been a £5 billion increase in spending on the state pension since January 2010. While working age benefits have been cut by 6 per cent, the cost of pensions has jumped 11 per cent. Figures by the IFS show total spending on pensioners was over £15 billion more than total spending on the rest of the population in 2013-14. The cost of older people isn’t going to slow down either; we are all living longer. There are ten million people aged 65 and over in the UK and in 20 years’ time that figure will increase by 5.5 million.

It’s not realistic to carry on providing benefits that are as generous for as long, it is too much of a burden on those of working age. Older people annoyed about state pension age rises argue they have paid national insurance – which is widely believed to be your contribution to your state pension – and deserve to take their pension at 65. In reality NI is used to pay for existing pensioners, there is no ‘pot of money’ waiting for you in retirement built up of NI contributions.

Of course we should make sure older people are not living in poverty, but equally they need to do their bit in these times of austerity and the ‘make do and mend’ generation will have to employ that sentiment once again.”


A CONSIDERED REPLY

In response to the above article, I would like to respectfully point-out to the author and her editors that the UK State Pension is NOT a benefit ... it’s an ENTITLEMENT! Furthermore, the UK State Pension is known to be one of the meanest state pensions in Europe. To suggest, therefore, that we ‘need to do our bit’ is not only an insult to the work we have already done and taxes we have already paid over the years (and still pay to this day), but it is also a shameless example of ageism.


We’ll probably be witnessing more ageist articles and public statements in the coming weeks, and when we do, we must protest as loud and as long as we can. If we don’t the powers-that-be and the media will see us as even more of a soft touch than we already are. Don’t let them get away with it!

 

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