OK I did use the word “hoarding”, but my point wasn’t that older people are doing anything wrong by keeping their homes. The issue is structural. Older cohorts ended up with most of the housing wealth because of the conditions they bought into and the policy environment that followed. That’s ONS data, not a character judgement.
Some also own additional properties, yes that’s a subset, but it’s controlling the rental market, driving up prices and making it much harder for young people to buy (instead of rent) homes. That’s what I mean by hoarding.
Pensions follow the same logic. People contributed through tax and NI, and they receive more public spending later in life because health and social care costs rise sharply with age. it’s the arithmetic of an ageing society. We gain more over 65s annually than we do immigrants on average.
Most of the immigrants are younger, healthier, work and pay taxes, thereby contributing. But they’re wrongly blamed for clogging up healthcare - it’s the elderly who require those resources the most and cost the most.
The murder you mention is horrific, but one case doesn’t describe an entire group. Home Office figures show asylum seekers are not more likely to offend than the general population.
My argument is about systems, not individuals - it’s about how wealth accumulated, how housing and pensions were shaped, and how global pressures drive migration.
What benefitted the (now elderly) was globalised capitalism - and exactly that is bringing immigrants to our borders now - you can’t have it both ways.