How about thinking of the elderly for a change ?

[ivanhoe]

The middle classes have managed to put their case on the media map because of Child Benefit reductions.

Wheras the pensioners cause has never found a media voice.

So middle England are moaning about losing their Child benefit, and the media are picking up on it and discussing it as a topical issue, because the middle classes are making a fuss.

But hang on a minute ?, the poorest people in this country are not the middle classes, they are the working classes who in proportion to income are paying more taxes than the middle class, and the pensioners on a £5,000 a year State pension receiving a State pension which they have already paid for while working prior to their old age retirement are being ignored, even though the oldest pensioners fought for this country during the War years.

Our elderly people are the generation that government?s have run rough shod over for the past 30 years, this is the generation we should all be speaking up for, and this is the generation who have paid into the system all their working lives, but have to endure a basic State pension of £97 a week, and means tested handouts.

Many woman get less State pension due to lack of contributions while raising families.

No.

Alan Moore knows the score.

so Alan Morre is a Daily Mail reader?

This is what happens to some of our pensioners in our country, too scared to heat their homes because of the rising bills.
This goes on while fatcats somewhere quaff champagne and count their bonuses paid for by the taxpayer.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1305988/Pensioner-froze-death-home-afford-use-heater.html

www.herefordtimes.com/news/5020816.Cold_killed_Ross_on_Wye_pensioner_afraid_of_heating_bill/

Many old people live alone, with no family visits. They are vulnerable people who deserve more from the country that they have worked for all their lives.

Wll done Claig, well done.

This should shake and wake, middle class mums up on mumsnet.

Well I am undecided I think but one benefit of non emans testing is that it has the potential of upping people's spending power which can directly translate into jobs etc- has to be of some value to teh state as a whole.

I am a Socialist; I beelive hugely in community and protection of teh vulnerable, not entirely becuase of any halo- I;vle always been the same and I'm a living lesson that the need to claim can affect pretty much anyone at any time.

The shame thing earlier reminded me of something. A few weeks after DH was made redundant last year (he was never out of work as he had a small business as well as his job but it was only ever designed to cover the costs of what he was doing, a hobby really, so we were and are expanding it) I lost my glasses and had to go to Specsavers for new ones- I can't function without them really. The woman there started having a real go at me, saying she would call my old opticians and if the last test was less than 2 years ago she woudln;t allow a replacement pair becuase people like me were draining teh state of cash and shoulod be ashamed of themselves. I sort of quietly muttered 'i;ve never claimed for an eye test in my life before' and she stopped dead in her tracks, went reed and said 'Oh oh not an issue then'- and I was treated very well after that by them. But I waited for the rest on the brink of etars and it really plinged me into some real lows, it was incredible what a sense f shame could do, even though logically I knew we had done nothing wrong. looking back I can see it triggered depression that alsted about 18 months and that i'd managed to avoid all through the diagnoses of the boys ASD etc.

It was quite a lesson in how much such a comment, and a need for help, can be damaging to a person.

exactly right Santas. People are proud and do feel shame and many don't claim their entitlements for those reasons. The authorities know this very well. It is sad that people turn on each other and accuse each other of scrounging or draining the state of benefits, when they should turn on the powerful and ask them why they hand over tax payers' money to fatcats who have been bailed out by the public.

Many old people are too proud to ask for help and don't want to inconvenience their relatives or the state. They think they are being a burden to their relatives. They struggle through alone. They find the forms too complicated to fill in. The authorities know this very well.

Means testing many pensioners forces them to reveal their savings and their assets, in short pensioners are "forced" to "prove" they need the money.

This is the kind of society we have become to each other, based on greed and self interest,, "untrust worthy".

Older pensioners are more likely to have the kind of pride in themselves that wont let them claim anything, younger pensioners do not have this pride so much, its not a view, its a fact.

///////It is sad that people turn on each other and accuse each other of scrounging or draining the state of benefits, when they should turn on the powerful and ask them why they hand over tax payers' money to fatcats who have been bailed out by the public.

Many old people are too proud to ask for help and don't want to inconvenience their relatives or the state. They think they are being a burden to their relatives. They struggle through alone. They find the forms too complicated to fill in. The authorities know this very well.///////

But we do turn on each other, dont we, and they love it at the top dont they.

/////Many old people live alone, with no family visits. They are vulnerable people who deserve more from the country that they have worked for all their lives./////

Thatcher brainwashed our nation to be selfish and self centred.

The same as Hitler brainwashed the German's to hate the Jews, and we know what happened there.

Our pensioners by way of a low State pension linked to inflation have been marginalisaed
from Society for almost 30 years.

Our pensioners have also been descriminated against by having to endure means testing for the same time period.

Millions of pensioners in this country are having to choose between heating, or eating, because they are frightened they wont be able to pay their ever increasing fuel bills.

This is Britain today, barbaric to the core.

You are probably right but I see it in so manya reas of society.

Ds1 for example is down to the last few in a queue of more than 30 for a aplce in an ASD unit, 2 places. He cannot get out the house alone, has terrible panic attacks and hysteria issues, eating disorders etc. he is 11.

In a few months he will be subjected to a visit from the DLA to renew his claim, where they are quite free to ask possibly the worlds most private little lad about his toilet needs, the diarrhoea he gets after eating etc. It will absolutely mortify him. And when tehy eleave, either me or his siblings will get a thump. That's a given.

I get it for new applciants or where there is doubt but he has a school 1-1, has been in teh system for 6 years, has a statement of SEN; thre's no way we are fiddling. It seems a deliberate ploy to heap sahme on those who need help to deter others. It's pitiful.

And absolutely so too for pensioners: Grandad is 90. Still lives alone etc (Nan passed away 12 years ago). He has never been quite well- we now feel pretty certain he ahs an ASD himself but nan covered it up. Every letter he gets about a benefit or a visit from a suurveyor to check his council house he panis: convinces himself he's being taken into care, amde homeless- was about to bin his TV last time as felt sure the council would chuck him out if he could afford a TV. Nobody can take him in, he wouldn;t go and Mum does the best she can to support him given he lives in another town and she can't drive: sees him three times a week at elast. but you do think argh not again when the council adn people who know about him just won;t listen.

You are right Santas. It is shameful how so many vulnerable and needy people are treated.

Young people are often stronger than old people. As we get older we get more frightened and we get weaker and weaker.

Another scandal that afflicts our old people are these cowboy traders who swindle them out of their life savings and take them in. They take advanatge of their old age. These things have gone on for years, we have all seen the TV programmes, where these cowboys set up under a new trading name. The penalties for vultures like that should be enormous, the authorities should make examples of them, in order to protect our old people.

We do not revere our elderly people in Britain.

We revere greed and selfishness.

See Claig I agree withe verything but with using vulnerable instead of old.

Confidence tricksters, scared- all things common to the ASD community, and no doubt disability more widely as well.

We have a moral duty to protect teh vulnerable, of which the elderly is a group, and a sensible one too on the basis that all of us are afew years or a car crash away from vulnerability.

Yes, I used vulnerable to encompass ASD, sick and old people. Yes it is natural humanity to protect and look after all our vulnerable people.

I don;t know that we need to rever our elderly in order to protect them. Elderly people vary in acceptability and behavior as much as any group- my Grandad is a racist barred from many shops for racial abuse, my charmer neighbour has just parked across my door barricading me in (only one entrance) even though the PCSO's already warned her of an ASBO after kicking and screeching DH's car for almost clipping hers whilst parking (she refers to him as 'the oik' and thinks we should be barred from village due to being working class).

I don't revere the way they are: I do however respect their right to financial security and an entitlement to basic human needs such as heat and security of housing.

"ivanhoe Fri 03-Dec-10 13:28:40
We do not revere our elderly people in Britain.

We revere greed and selfishness."

speak for yourself

I think Ivanhoe is right, our society has become more brutish and we care less for the sick and the elderly. That is why we get the likes of Frankie Boyle making jokes about people with Downs syndrome and audiences laugh. Respect for our elders has declined.

Ivanhoe is also right, that some of this selfishness and brutishness is a result of some aspects of Thatcherism. The media has also contributed by portraying families of ten with plasma TVs and branding them scroungers.

Who gains by spreading a culture of brutishness and a culture of disrespect for other vulnerable people?

Oh I totally agree about society, there are many reasons though.

Absolutely Thatcher- but then, where I grew up was decimated by her legacy, then i moved close to the valleys LOL. So I may be biased.

But other things too: in part the sheer visibility of the disabled, not that long ago many of our kids would have been locked up and we'd ahve been told to forget them. Parents wouldn't see the help we get in terms of school support, or mutter about my mate's expensive wheelchair (as his voca is programmed to say- 'you reckon they paid for this? are you delusional?'- I love him!)

The elderly were the Grandparents who died shortly after finishing work: there wasn;t stuf fon the news all the time about the pensions bomb or a top heavy society.

Society is changing and we haven't yet caught up with it in terms of tolerance, that's not unique when you look back through history.

Anda shortage of funds leads to infighting: if someone yells at ds3 for being absent then you can palce a bet the person is elderly or physically disabled, or often both. pressure from outside to make claimants or anyone outside a narrow worthy working poor has stimulated a society where the groups do battle for themselves becuase the law of the jungle has returned.

And it will get decidedly worse under this lot who genuinely do not seem to have a bloody clue about bringing society together and how that makes people perform better. Punishments (benefit loss) and forcing has the opposite effect.

Yes you are right, good point, it is infighting as money gets tighter. Good point that the disabled are more visible, and therefore to some extent due to lack of money for all groups, they get attacked more than before.

Every country is going through the same money squeeze. You are right the pensions time bomb is being discussed more and more in every country and the infighting increases. Also the elderly pensioners are also attacked as the money squeeze tightens, and for the first time since the Welfare State was founded, council house tenants will not receive security of tenure.

The pension age is being increased. Harriet Harman started it and Duncan-Smith is continuing it. Every major country is going through the same.

Is there really a shortage of money? Where did the money to bail out Ireland come from? What about the bank bailout money? and the bonus money?

There's a shortage of money that people are willing to see pumped into a benefit system that tehy are constantly told by dubious media sources exists only to serve scroungers.

And that is all it takes, sadly.

What was the recent DM headline? 75% of people on EMA fraudsters? I don;t beleive that for a moment but when they use a test asking if people can pick up a pencil, and fail them if they can, most sick and disbaled people are left outside the system. DS3 can pick up a pencil: he cannot talk properly, has a 2 minute attention span for all but PC games and stims endlessly, he cannot work but if the test exists when he reaches adulthood he will not be classed as genuine.

claig, here's some info for you

Mean testing pensioners is costing 15 to 20 times than the retoration of the earnings link and a higher state pension.

The government are sitting on a "surplus" in N.I. contributions estimated at around £50 billion.

That's not forgetting fighting foreign wars, bailing out banks, bailing out Ireland, I believe to the tune of billions.

Basically there is more than enogh tax payers money to give all our pensioners a decent State pension.

Trouble is we just dont "think" in this country, our brains are politically inactive, unless things effect us personally, of course.

//////Who gains by spreading a culture of brutishness and a culture of disrespect for other vulnerable people?/////

Our politicians preach devide and conquer, and we fall for it everytime.

thanks, Ivanhoe. That wouldn't surprise me at all.

You generalise too much Ivanhoe

Given that only Claig and I remain on the thread do we sound as id we fall for it? do not think? remain politically inactive?

If you stop posting in soundbites and generalised arguments (and drop those weird ///// quotes) you might find you engage better with people.

Yes the rich and powerful gain, as they squeeze our pensions and all our benefits. Soon they will start selling us "work till you drop" and many people will say anyone who doesn't is a scrounger. It's a piece of cake for the powerful, like shooting fish in a barrel.