I’D like to live a very long time.
I come from a long-lived family, my grandmother made it to just a couple of weeks short of her 100th birthday and was healthy and active. She lived by herself until just a year or two before she passed away.
My ambition is to stand at a bus stop when I am in my mid-90s, moaning about “young people today” and berating them because when I was their age I was out taking lots of drugs and having casual sex.
But I most certainly don’t want to live to a ripe old age where I’ll be so poor that I’ll be forced into a crappy job just to pay the bills. Yet that looks like the future that the UK has in store for the elderly is in store stacking shelves in Morrisons.
The UK already has one of the worst state pensions in Europe, and now the British government plans to turn the screw even tighter on pensioners. But even that isn’t harsh enough for some of the right-wing ideologues who have the ear of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
READ MORE: Michael Fry: GERS figures are pure mince – and it's not hard to see why
The state pension age is set to increase to 67 by 2028, and to 68 by 2046. Now the Orwellian named Centre for Social Justice, Iain Duncan Smith’s think-tank – although I use that term loosely – would like to raise it to 70 by 2028 and then to 75 by 2035.
The Centre for Social Justice is rated D by the Who Funds You? campaign for think-tank transparency, the second-lowest rating given by the campaign.
Out of the eight think tanks receiving the lowest two ratings for funding transparency, seven are right-wing. All of those receiving the lowest rating are right-wing, including a number which popped up with some frequency during the independence referendum campaign as “impartial think tanks”.
Iain Duncan Smith’s organisation identifies only some of its donors. But with an annual income of £1,179,150 it’s a safe bet that it doesn’t rely on organising raffles. Those who back it are clearly not worrying about their own dependency on the state pension.
The proposal to raise the state pension age to 75 is nothing more than people who have already done very well out of life wanting to make sure that people who haven’t enjoyed the same good fortune spend their last years in penury.
The poor will have to slave away until they drop, despite their advanced age and increasing infirmities, because the rich don’t want to give up on the opportunity of having a second skiing holiday annually, or buying their little darlings a pony each. And this is fine with the kind of person who is influential within the British government. That’s the state of public priorities in the UK.
They tell us we need to be more productive. Yet it’s funny that it’s the likes of Iain Duncan Smith who waffle on about productivity, when all he produces himself is odiously poisoned hot air.
It sticks in the craw to be lectured about personal productivity from a man who, I strongly suspect, has never bought his own underwear. We see in Iain the perfect example of all that is wrong with the British state. He’s a rich and smugly comfortable Tory, who never needs to worry about keeping a roof over his head or paying his electricity bill because he married into inherited wealth, pontificating about productivity to people who really do have to slog hard every day of their lives.
READ MORE: Busted: 'There's a £14bn black hole in Scotland's budget'
This patronising Tory attitude was encapsulated in Glasgow councillor Phillip Charles who boasted that he didn’t have a problem with increasing the state pension age to 75 because he has a pension that kicks in at 60. Those who are imposing this increase in the state pension age are those who will never be dependent on it themselves. It’s I’m Alright Jack as government policy.
The reality for many is that old age is a time of poor health, of restricted mobility, of declining abilities. It’s a time when you’re also more likely to have to care for a spouse or partner who is in poor health.
It’s one thing to look forward to a life of productive and renumerated labour when that labour consists of sitting on your backside and typing at a laptop, or chairing a board meeting.
It’s quite another when you’ve spent your working life physically exerting yourself and your body has accumulated decades of damage as a result. Yet those are the kind of people who don’t typically sit in governments and make decisions about raising the pension age.
Politicians, as we all know, have very generous pension arrangements of their own. They’re not affected by an increase in the state pension age in the same way as someone for whom it’s the only pension they have.
Men typically have a significantly lower life expectancy than women. In Glasgow, the average life expectancy for men is 71.6.
There are communities in Glasgow, such as Calton and Bridgeton, where the average life expectancy of men is 67.8 years. Baillieston, which is represented, and I use that term loosely too, by Councillor Charles, is better than the Glasgow average because the ward includes districts like Garrowhill, which is somewhat more prosperous.
Men living there can expect to live to 76. However, even there many men still won’t survive long enough to claim a state pension if Duncan Smith’s proposals are adopted. In the UK, you’re expected to work until you drop. We are now seeing a generation of workers in part-time jobs, working in the gig economy on a series of short term contracts with no job security. Employee pension schemes are contracting in scope. With soaring living costs and the growth of private rental, younger people already struggle to save enough to put down a deposit on a home of their own.
Contributing to a private pension scheme is beyond their means. The state pension will be the only pension many of them can look forward to, and it is getting ever further and further out of reach.
What this proposal is really aimed at is airing the possibility of a further increase in the age at which people become eligible for the UK’s miserable and meagre state pension. It’s an exercise in expectations management. Then when the government announces that it will “only” increase the state pension age to 70 we’ll think we’ve got off lightly.
Pensions were a key issue in the 2014 referendum campaign. Thanks to the Tories, the insecurity of British pensions will be a key issue in the next independence referendum campaign.
All the UK offers is the chance to work until you drop. An independent Scotland must show that it will make better choices for its older people.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel