to think if the state pension age of 68 is being brought forward.........

[JenniferBooth]

then they need to stop moaning and whining when there are no family members (read women)
to provide unpaid care so elderly relatives can be discharged from hospital
You cant have it both ways.

This is incorrect. There is a proposal to increase the minimum age to access pension from 55 to 56 although that has yet to be confirmed. Where you may be confused is that annuities are much lower for younger retirees as in theory it will be laid for longer. Or perhaps the factor that a final salary pension will be reduced by taking benefits before the standard retire age.

Actually that poster is totally correct. The big public sector pensions schemes (civil service, NHS) are tied to the state retirement age now, and cannot be drawn until SRA without taking significant deductions. They're not final salary any more either.

There is a proposal to increase the minimum age to access pension from 55 to 56 although that has yet to be confirmed.

Considering the government is all about the age people are living to now, and using it for justification for delaying the state pension, can I assume that they will exempt people who are almost certainly not going to live anywhere near as long owing to their personal health and physical circumstances from having the goalposts on their private pensions moved even further away from them - so they might actually have a chance to receive some pension?

How nasty, heartless and (in many cases) ableist would that be if they didn't? Not holding my breath, mind.

It’s totally wrong to move the goal posts on private pensions. My first private pension moved the goal posts and I think that should be illegal.
Its like buying a Rolls Royce only to be told actually we have decided to give you a Mini.
Is it really worth saving into a pension when they do this? Or are you better enjoying your life and spending your cash.

The idea that lockdown was for the benefit of the elderly as a cohort certainly needs challenging, not least because plenty of them opposed it and suffered because of it. As well as the care homes fiasco.

But it's true that lockdown wasn't for everyone's benefit. Some people had their situations deliberately worsened in the hope that those of others would be bettered. And the reality is that lots of people just don't need the NHS: the problem is that you don't know in advance whether you're going to be one of those people or not. So of course there's a group of people who didn't derive any benefit from lockdown, and some who actively suffered because of it.

So if you or your child needed an emergency admission during that time and it couldn't happen because the hospitals were unable to take you and you, or your child, died that would have been OK?

I've had a child with meningitis who was seen by paramedics very quickly, was put on IV antibiotics in her bedroom and then transferred to hospital. If that had been during the covid emergency and she hadn't got that treatment she could have died. If you've never faced that sort of situation you are very fortunate.

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard , great name, and I agree with you. I feel for the young and healthy who were locked up along with everyone else.

All the people I know who are elderly or were in the shielding group would rather have had their freedom and taken their chances. The mental and physical decline in some from being made afraid to leave their homes is heartbreaking. Not at all worth it.

The idea that lockdown was for the benefit of the elderly as a cohort certainly needs challenging, not least because plenty of them opposed it and suffered because of it. As well as the care homes fiasco.

ITA - and especially after hearing peoples’ accounts of how their parents, or partners or friends deteriorated and/or died in care homes, because of the effects of social isolation, lack of food, mental stimulation and loss of family life, in the last days or months of their life, due to the regulations on care home residents. At least the normal population could go out in between lockdowns; care home residents couldn’t!

Anybody who thinks it was for the benefit of the elderly, is living in cloud cuckoo land!

EXACTLY Totally agree.

Intended for the benefit of the elderly maybe, but it was as damaging for them as anyone. I’ll never forgive the government for lockdowns

It was intended for the benefit of the NHS

The rumours were France was going to stop exports if the UK did not lockdown. It was in the press at the time.

Intended for the benefit of the elderly maybe, but it was as damaging for them as anyone.

Imo, it was intended to save the NHS for the working population. Iirc, Chris Whitty or one of his colleagues was saying in March 2020, that if it came to the crunch (and they were expecting 600,000 deaths worst case scenario?), then people over 60 would not get a hospital bed, if they were seriously ill with Covid. As it was, some elderly people were left to die in care homes in the 1st wave, because the CCGs told the homes, even if they called an ambulance, none would come?

Lockdown was for the benefit of the economy.

I doubt that. We could have avoided all the cost, which was extremely high.

The cost of not doing it and allowing the country's infrastructure to collapse was higher.

We’d could have a higher death rate - but maybe debatable actually . But no I don’t see this given the huge costs of closing parts down of the economy down:

This, ultimately, is guesswork. I've no problem with people having a punt but let's not pretend it's anything else. We haven't even finished the pandemic yet.

It’s hard to measure but one thing is known - the public cared more about health than the economy in early stages and this switched as time moved on

Public demand was high re health / Covid deaths

No, but we have a well vaccinated population now, so whereas a lockdown in late March was only able to keep April's deaths down to about 36,000 with an additional spike of excess deaths that were not attributed to covid, now covid only directly kills about 36,000 a year.

A 36,000 a month death rate couldn't be allowed to continue. So the lockdown had to.

Politically, I think it was impossible. There was no way the UK could actually have avoided a lockdown. It wouldn't have happened otherwise, because the government didn't want one initially.

But this is a different issue to whether the cost of a lockdown was higher than the cost of not having one, and anyone who claims they know the answer to that one at this stage is bullshitting.

I think thinking life would've carried on as normal and people would've carried on going to pubs, and cinemas and work when those kind of numbers were dying and ten times more were in hospital is naive.

Again, this is a separate point to whether the costs of locking down were greater or lower than the costs of not locking down. Which would be guesswork.

There is an article in The Guardian today, which says 1.6 million people over the age of 50 are unable to work, due to long term sickness:

www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/30/long-term-sickness-leaving-16m-uk-adults-aged-50-or-over-unable-to-work

It goes on to say, some people would like or need to work, but they need to be able to find a different kind of work, within their capabilities.

It's already hard to find work aged over 50. Bringing disability and long term sickness into the mix makes it even harder. Sadly legislation prohibiting discrimination on basis of age and of disability doesn't actually wipe it out.