Labour hates old people. You don’t have to search very far to find evidence to support that assertion. The latest revenue-raising wheeze from our gerontophobic government is a suggestion that Rachel Reeves and the Budget of Doom should scrap free prescriptions for those aged between 60 and 65. This is being sold as a sensible move “aligning free prescriptions with the state pension age of 66”. Do not be deceived. As I can testify, my own pension age is a tantalising mirage – the closer you get to it, the more likely the blighters are to declare that it’s moved and you’re still too young. Last time I looked, it said I can claim my pension aged 66 years and four months. By which time they will probably have removed the “triple lock” and decided that older people are a drain on resources so, instead of money, they’ll pay us in bunion vouchers and smoky bacon crisps.
Baby boomers, that’s those of us born in the 1950s and 1960s, are living longer than our parents, but in poorer health, according to a new study published in the Journals of Gerontology. Researchers say that adults from middle age onwards are now more likely to have cancer, heart problems and other chronic illnesses than our predecessors. Increasing obesity is cited as one factor. I would also point to stress and the abolition of that blessed period known as Putting Your Feet Up. We go on working longer because so many of us have young adult children dependent on our financial help (extortionate rents, impossible to save for a deposit on a place of their own) beyond the age when our own parents could have expected to get us off the books.
Many of my female friends in their late 50s, 60s and 70s are still in employment – and working flat out. Or, if they do retire, they get a three-day spa break and an orchid in a china pot, and then it’s straight back to the childcare-coalface they thought they were done with 20 years ago.
A heroic 63 per cent of grandparents with grandchildren under 16 help out with childcare, and one in five grandmas provide at least 10 hours a week in care. (One in three working mothers rely on grandparents to look after the kids.) I know that most do it willingly, lovingly, and often brilliantly, but it’s exhausting running around after small children. Resentment increases, as does blood pressure. I know a couple of ladies in their late seventies who worry about their safety carrying wriggly toddlers up stairs to bed.
Remember, they are not the grandmothers of old like my Welsh mamgu who never worked outside the home. These are women who have already punched in 40 years of work before becoming granny-nannies. No wonder they get ill.
Grandparents do it for one reason. Their adult offspring can’t afford extortionate British nursery fees. Or the holiday clubs that drain resources over a six-week summer holiday which should long ago have been halved in duration to better reflect the reality of two parents in full-time work trying to make ends meet. Even couples on sizeable incomes can quickly find themselves skint if they have two under-fives in pre-school. The UK has the highest childcare costs of any country apart from Switzerland – a stonking 26.6 per cent of average family incomes, compared to an OECD average of just 11.8 per cent. No wonder so many now stick at one child and our birth-rate is flatlining.
Those devoted grandparents save their families around £96 billion in childcare costs each year in the UK, enabling millions of adults to be in full-time work – an incredible contribution to the exchequer from five million senior citizens who could be enjoying their retirement.
Does the state show any gratitude or appreciation for this unpaid army of childminders? Does it honour our older generation, and revere them as it should? Or does it kick them in the teeth at every available opportunity, even removing their Winter Fuel Allowance?
We know the answer. Labour hates old people. After they tried to con us into believing we faced imminent financial collapse, unless £22 billion was found, the Government prioritised junior doctors and well-paid train drivers over 10 million pensioners, a third of whom are living in poverty. The Chancellor insists she will honour the “triple lock” on pensions. But it’s still only Wednesday; give her time.
It’s horribly clear that a number of pensioners, who are scared to turn up the thermostat, will die of hypothermia this winter. Don’t despair, Rachel; those who somehow manage to stay alive wearing four layers and bed socks can soon be helped on their way by the assisted dying bill. There are dark jokes on social media pointing out that we already have assisted dying in this country: it’s called the NHS.
Anyone who has had recent experience of our health service will wonder how such an overwhelmed, dysfunctional organisation could possibly be trusted to safely administer mercy killing with the fine moral judgement and safeguards that would require.
The NHS cannot be trusted with assisted dying, quite obviously. (Unassisted dying is on enough of a roll with 14,000 avoidable deaths a year in England alone, due to agonisingly long waits in A&E.) Experience during Covid, when a suspicious number of elderly patients, care-home residents and disabled people had DNR (do not resuscitate) notices slapped on them when they succumbed to what was effectively bad flu, provides a chilling precedent that we should not wish to repeat.
Old Labour, the proper Socialist Left, was always opposed to euthanasia because they knew full well that it was the poorest and the most vulnerable who would be coerced into killing themselves. (In Canada, there is ample proof of that slippery slope; one man was approved for assisted dying because he couldn’t afford his rent out of his disability payment.) This new generation of unprincipled, greedy Starmerists have a management-consultant morality; if it sounds modern and saves money, let’s go for it!
One elderly person Labour does seem to rate is Dame Esther Rantzen. The 84-year-old TV presenter and campaigner is sadly dying of terminal lung cancer and has made assisted dying her last great cause. In an extraordinary recent statement, the Prime Minister said: “I made a promise to Esther Rantzen before the election that we would provide time for a debate and a vote on assisted dying… and obviously that opportunity has now arisen and I’m very pleased to be able to make good on the promise I made to Esther.”
Since when did Esther Rantzen, she of the funny-shaped vegetables on That’s Life, become a moral philosopher equipped to preside over the introduction onto the statute books of a law that has momentous, life-and-death consequences for the British people?
The PM, a strangely soulless figure and not because he’s an atheist, appears to want to rush through assisted dying without proper consultation with faith leaders and medical authorities (the bill will be introduced a week tomorrow, and voted on later in the year) so he gladly uses a household name for a spot of emotional blackmail. How shallow and repugnant.
I heard Esther Rantzen on Radio 4, where she described the assisted death she envisages. It clearly involved a compassionate doctor turning up to her comfortable Hampstead home to administer the fatal dose and all her family at her bedside. Marvellous, and who would deny her a peaceful, painless exit when the time comes. But that is hardly the scenario less fortunate people could expect. Picture some clueless locum with bad English wandering the wards calling, “Have we got a Mr Smith here for assisted dying?”
The broken NHS has faced increasing medical negligence bills with the cost of harm for 2023/2024 estimated at £5.1 billion. If surgeons can operate on the wrong leg, what are the chances the wrong patient could be put to sleep? Or that there would be not-so-subtle pressure on elderly “bed-blockers” to do the right thing and avoid being a burden on the system. This is still a Christian country and the sanctity of human life must be observed. I am not opposed to people with brutal, incurable diseases having their passing eased with large doses of morphine – as family doctors used to do before the Harold Shipman case saw rules tightened up to the point where medics can exercise neither judgement nor compassion. But let’s not be naïve enough to think an assisted dying law won’t soon become a licence to kill the old and the weak.
Elderly people are the most likely to vote, and the least likely to vote Labour. (Well they do say wisdom comes with age!) But if this Government thinks it can keep up a spiteful war against pensioners with impunity, it is mistaken. Respect for your elders is one of the cornerstones of a civilised society; any country that forgets that is lost indeed.
While Ed threatens factory closures, power cuts are inevitable
Ed Miliband’s amazing quest to take our country back to the dark ages is coming on splendidly. Most expensive electricity on Earth? Check! Looming ban on petrol cars without the infrastructure to charge the electric cars that no one wants? Oh, yes. Crisis in the Middle East sending oil and gas prices soaring just as Ed has scared off any investors from drilling in the North Sea? Don’t worry, Marjorie, we are world leaders.
Last week, Mad Ed issued a video boasting how “142 years of coal came to an end in this country”. That made the UK the first G7 country to completely phase out coal. Any guesses as to why no one else is keen to follow our lead?
So I decided to start a sweepstake. How long before the first Mad Ed power cut?
“Late January,” says Linda. “Middle of February,” says Alan. “Week commencing January 6,” says David. “Electricity rationing this winter,” predicts Dylan. Michael says: “My bet is the weekend of December 20-22.”
“Early January,” says Alex. “What an absolute plonker he is,” says Patricia.
Oops, sorry, that’s not a prediction, that’s a description of the Secretary of State for Net Zero and Energy Insecurity.
Several readers have sent me pictures of cautionary leaflets that have already come through their door. Like this one from Electricity North West: “Extra support when you need it most – We’re here to support you during a power cut, and can also help you save energy and money.” Do you think the power companies know something we don’t?
Do send me your Mad Ed power-cut predictions, along with any survival tips you can remember from the blackouts of the 1970s.
I am indebted to Geoff for his inspired moniker for Ed: Thoroughly Mental Mili.
First they ditched the winter fuel allowance, now our gerontophobic government is considering scrapping free prescriptions for over 60s
Labour hates old people. You don’t have to search very far to find evidence to support that assertion. The latest revenue-raising wheeze from our gerontophobic government is a suggestion that Rachel Reeves and the Budget of Doom should scrap free prescriptions for those aged between 60 and 65. This is being sold as a sensible move “aligning free prescriptions with the state pension age of 66”. Do not be deceived. As I can testify, my own pension age is a tantalising mirage – the closer you get to it, the more likely the blighters are to declare that it’s moved and you’re still too young. Last time I looked, it said I can claim my pension aged 66 years and four months. By which time they will probably have removed the “triple lock” and decided that older people are a drain on resources so, instead of money, they’ll pay us in bunion vouchers and smoky bacon crisps.
Baby boomers, that’s those of us born in the 1950s and 1960s, are living longer than our parents, but in poorer health, according to a new study published in the Journals of Gerontology. Researchers say that adults from middle age onwards are now more likely to have cancer, heart problems and other chronic illnesses than our predecessors. Increasing obesity is cited as one factor. I would also point to stress and the abolition of that blessed period known as Putting Your Feet Up. We go on working longer because so many of us have young adult children dependent on our financial help (extortionate rents, impossible to save for a deposit on a place of their own) beyond the age when our own parents could have expected to get us off the books.
Many of my female friends in their late 50s, 60s and 70s are still in employment – and working flat out. Or, if they do retire, they get a three-day spa break and an orchid in a china pot, and then it’s straight back to the childcare-coalface they thought they were done with 20 years ago.
A heroic 63 per cent of grandparents with grandchildren under 16 help out with childcare, and one in five grandmas provide at least 10 hours a week in care. (One in three working mothers rely on grandparents to look after the kids.) I know that most do it willingly, lovingly, and often brilliantly, but it’s exhausting running around after small children. Resentment increases, as does blood pressure. I know a couple of ladies in their late seventies who worry about their safety carrying wriggly toddlers up stairs to bed.
Remember, they are not the grandmothers of old like my Welsh mamgu who never worked outside the home. These are women who have already punched in 40 years of work before becoming granny-nannies. No wonder they get ill.
Grandparents do it for one reason. Their adult offspring can’t afford extortionate British nursery fees. Or the holiday clubs that drain resources over a six-week summer holiday which should long ago have been halved in duration to better reflect the reality of two parents in full-time work trying to make ends meet. Even couples on sizeable incomes can quickly find themselves skint if they have two under-fives in pre-school. The UK has the highest childcare costs of any country apart from Switzerland – a stonking 26.6 per cent of average family incomes, compared to an OECD average of just 11.8 per cent. No wonder so many now stick at one child and our birth-rate is flatlining.
Those devoted grandparents save their families around £96 billion in childcare costs each year in the UK, enabling millions of adults to be in full-time work – an incredible contribution to the exchequer from five million senior citizens who could be enjoying their retirement.
Does the state show any gratitude or appreciation for this unpaid army of childminders? Does it honour our older generation, and revere them as it should? Or does it kick them in the teeth at every available opportunity, even removing their Winter Fuel Allowance?
We know the answer. Labour hates old people. After they tried to con us into believing we faced imminent financial collapse, unless £22 billion was found, the Government prioritised junior doctors and well-paid train drivers over 10 million pensioners, a third of whom are living in poverty. The Chancellor insists she will honour the “triple lock” on pensions. But it’s still only Wednesday; give her time.
It’s horribly clear that a number of pensioners, who are scared to turn up the thermostat, will die of hypothermia this winter. Don’t despair, Rachel; those who somehow manage to stay alive wearing four layers and bed socks can soon be helped on their way by the assisted dying bill. There are dark jokes on social media pointing out that we already have assisted dying in this country: it’s called the NHS.
Anyone who has had recent experience of our health service will wonder how such an overwhelmed, dysfunctional organisation could possibly be trusted to safely administer mercy killing with the fine moral judgement and safeguards that would require.
The NHS cannot be trusted with assisted dying, quite obviously. (Unassisted dying is on enough of a roll with 14,000 avoidable deaths a year in England alone, due to agonisingly long waits in A&E.) Experience during Covid, when a suspicious number of elderly patients, care-home residents and disabled people had DNR (do not resuscitate) notices slapped on them when they succumbed to what was effectively bad flu, provides a chilling precedent that we should not wish to repeat.
Old Labour, the proper Socialist Left, was always opposed to euthanasia because they knew full well that it was the poorest and the most vulnerable who would be coerced into killing themselves. (In Canada, there is ample proof of that slippery slope; one man was approved for assisted dying because he couldn’t afford his rent out of his disability payment.) This new generation of unprincipled, greedy Starmerists have a management-consultant morality; if it sounds modern and saves money, let’s go for it!
One elderly person Labour does seem to rate is Dame Esther Rantzen. The 84-year-old TV presenter and campaigner is sadly dying of terminal lung cancer and has made assisted dying her last great cause. In an extraordinary recent statement, the Prime Minister said: “I made a promise to Esther Rantzen before the election that we would provide time for a debate and a vote on assisted dying… and obviously that opportunity has now arisen and I’m very pleased to be able to make good on the promise I made to Esther.”
Since when did Esther Rantzen, she of the funny-shaped vegetables on That’s Life, become a moral philosopher equipped to preside over the introduction onto the statute books of a law that has momentous, life-and-death consequences for the British people?
The PM, a strangely soulless figure and not because he’s an atheist, appears to want to rush through assisted dying without proper consultation with faith leaders and medical authorities (the bill will be introduced a week tomorrow, and voted on later in the year) so he gladly uses a household name for a spot of emotional blackmail. How shallow and repugnant.
I heard Esther Rantzen on Radio 4, where she described the assisted death she envisages. It clearly involved a compassionate doctor turning up to her comfortable Hampstead home to administer the fatal dose and all her family at her bedside. Marvellous, and who would deny her a peaceful, painless exit when the time comes. But that is hardly the scenario less fortunate people could expect. Picture some clueless locum with bad English wandering the wards calling, “Have we got a Mr Smith here for assisted dying?”
The broken NHS has faced increasing medical negligence bills with the cost of harm for 2023/2024 estimated at £5.1 billion. If surgeons can operate on the wrong leg, what are the chances the wrong patient could be put to sleep? Or that there would be not-so-subtle pressure on elderly “bed-blockers” to do the right thing and avoid being a burden on the system. This is still a Christian country and the sanctity of human life must be observed. I am not opposed to people with brutal, incurable diseases having their passing eased with large doses of morphine – as family doctors used to do before the Harold Shipman case saw rules tightened up to the point where medics can exercise neither judgement nor compassion. But let’s not be naïve enough to think an assisted dying law won’t soon become a licence to kill the old and the weak.
Elderly people are the most likely to vote, and the least likely to vote Labour. (Well they do say wisdom comes with age!) But if this Government thinks it can keep up a spiteful war against pensioners with impunity, it is mistaken. Respect for your elders is one of the cornerstones of a civilised society; any country that forgets that is lost indeed.
While Ed threatens factory closures, power cuts are inevitable
Ed Miliband’s amazing quest to take our country back to the dark ages is coming on splendidly. Most expensive electricity on Earth? Check! Looming ban on petrol cars without the infrastructure to charge the electric cars that no one wants? Oh, yes. Crisis in the Middle East sending oil and gas prices soaring just as Ed has scared off any investors from drilling in the North Sea? Don’t worry, Marjorie, we are world leaders.
Last week, Mad Ed issued a video boasting how “142 years of coal came to an end in this country”. That made the UK the first G7 country to completely phase out coal. Any guesses as to why no one else is keen to follow our lead?
So I decided to start a sweepstake. How long before the first Mad Ed power cut?
“Late January,” says Linda. “Middle of February,” says Alan. “Week commencing January 6,” says David. “Electricity rationing this winter,” predicts Dylan. Michael says: “My bet is the weekend of December 20-22.”
“Early January,” says Alex. “What an absolute plonker he is,” says Patricia.
Oops, sorry, that’s not a prediction, that’s a description of the Secretary of State for Net Zero and Energy Insecurity.
Several readers have sent me pictures of cautionary leaflets that have already come through their door. Like this one from Electricity North West: “Extra support when you need it most – We’re here to support you during a power cut, and can also help you save energy and money.” Do you think the power companies know something we don’t?
Do send me your Mad Ed power-cut predictions, along with any survival tips you can remember from the blackouts of the 1970s.
I am indebted to Geoff for his inspired moniker for Ed: Thoroughly Mental Mili.