9 ELDERLY PEOPLE DIE EVERY HOUR OF THE COLD.

[ivanhoe]

THOUSANDS of pensioners died from cold-related illnesses last winter as heating bills soared and temperatures plummeted, official figures reveal.

The number of deaths linked to the cold between December and March reached 25,400 in England and Wales, with another 2,760 in Scotland.

The figures are equivalent to nine deaths every hour.

The total gave Britain the highest winter death rate in northern Europe, worse than much colder countries such as Finland and Sweden.

There are fears the death toll could increase this year following energy price rises which may frighten elderly people into not turning on their heating.

Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ?It?s unacceptable that tens of thousands more older people die in this country every winter from the effects of the cold weather.

The fact that the UK has one of the highest winter mortality rates in Europe makes it clear this is very much a home-grown problem.

Grey pound packs a £100bn punch!!

A counterpoint.

Those pensioners are not the millions in poverty.

Fortunately the Coalition thinks there is a problem.

'The Liberal Democrat's shadow work and pensions secretary, Steve Webb, said changes to the pension system had failed to help many older people.
"It is still the case that pensioners who are forced to rely on the state pension and Labour's complex and undignified system of means-tested benefits are more likely to live in fuel poverty," he said.
"The basic state pension is simply too little to live on for the millions of pensioners who have no other income. We need a more generous, universal pension based on citizenship that would give pensioners a sense of dignity and a stable income in retirement."

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/27/pensioners-poverty-ons-inequality

'In total 2.5 million pensioners are now living below the official poverty line of £151 a week, the NPC said.
The figures comes as The Daily Telegraph calls for pensioners to be given a tax cut on their savings and investments through its Justice for Pensioners campaign.'

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4030321/Millions-of-elderly-people-live-in-poverty-figures-suggest.html

//////claig Wed 26-Jan-11 21:54:52
Those pensioners are not the millions in poverty.

Fortunately the Coalition thinks there is a problem.

'The Liberal Democrat's shadow work and pensions secretary, Steve Webb, said changes to the pension system had failed to help many older people.
"It is still the case that pensioners who are forced to rely on the state pension and Labour's complex and undignified system of means-tested benefits are more likely to live in fuel poverty," he said.
"The basic state pension is simply too little to live on for the millions of pensioners who have no other income. We need a more generous, universal pension based on citizenship that would give pensioners a sense of dignity and a stable income in retirement."

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/27/pensioners-po verty-ons-inequality

'In total 2.5 million pensioners are now living below the official poverty line of £151 a week, the NPC said.
The figures comes as The Daily Telegraph calls for pensioners to be given a tax cut on their savings and investments through its Justice for Pensioners campaign.'

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recessio n/4030321/Millions-of-elderly-people-live-in-pover ty-figures-suggest.html///////

To think, all this started when Thatcher broke the earnings link to state pension increases, in 1980.

You're right, and Labour never restored it, just like they didn't restore union rights. They're all in it together. It is a charade.

//////You're right, and Labour never restored it, just like they didn't restore union rights. They're all in it together. It is a charade.//////

Yes, its a charade, and a charade we all put up with as a country.

You need a proportional representation voting system and a pensioners' party that can be part of a coalition government. Israel has got that, and its pensioners' party has in the past threatened to leave the coalition if pensions weren't increased.

You need a party to stand up for pensioners, because too many MPs were too busy flipping their homes to treat the issue seriously enough.

Claig. Well said.

Can I suggest you read a book by David 'two brains' Willetts called The Pinch on the ongoing issue of intergenerational theft? I should warn you though that it might not end the way you like... a couple of salient points, the over 50s control half of the UK's wealth, and if means testing is good enough for the young uns why is it too intrusive for pensioners? Why should five year olds pay for a bus to get to school but pensioners get one for free to schlep round M&S??
Why should hard working kids in their 20s with £30k of student debt, who can't even afford to rent a house on their own so have to live in shared accommodation with friends, let alone buy a home of their own be paying to heat the homes of retirees such as Fred Goodwin? And if pensioners are so underrepresented in politics (have you not heard of the grey vote, Christ it's like Dawn of the Dead round here on polling day) - why do they have their own Tsar? And why is almost all of the House of Lords and most of the House of Commons aged over 50? I'm always amused at the sudden resurgence of interest in pensioners' rights by the baby boomers - the generation who were in charge when those frail OAPs who survived the great war really were living in poverty. Pensioners these days don't know they're born

/////You need a party to stand up for pensioners, because too many MPs were too busy flipping their homes to treat the issue seriously enough.//////

I could not agree more, its a pity we are so far away from each other, we could start one up.

Tsars are PR spin used by the parties. Have you ever seen a tsar on Question Time? The House of Lords is not full of poor pensioners.

There are millions of pensioners living in council houses who can't go on cruises to the Mediterranean. Complimentary knows about them, she used to work with them and saw firsthand what goes on.

ivanhoe, I am only interested in the party of truth, the Conservative party. I see no need to vote for anyone else.

Poppet, you make some salient points except with the generalization, for every Goodwin there are thousands of OAP,s in poverty.

exactly, Goodwin, knighted by the Labour party for his services to banking, is not representative of the good pensioners of this country, who have worked all their lives without receiving Labour knighthoods.

exactly, Goodwin, knighted by the Labour party for his services to banking, is not representative of the good pensioners of this country, who have worked all their lives without receiving Labour knighthoods.

Trite but true, both sides of the political divide have given the greater honours to people who are parasites on society.

/////ivanhoe, I am only interested in the party of truth, the Conservative party. I see no need to vote for anyone else.//////

You are having a laugh, it was the Conservatives who broke the state pensions link to earnings under Thatcher.

I just looked up Willetts's book 'The Pinch'. I don't agree with him. It is pretty obvious what it is all about, and the Guardian has a favourable review of it by a director of that leftwing think tank, Demos, so beloved of Tony Blair.

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/07/the-pinch-david-willetts

Willets blames the babyboomers for stealing their children's future and for getting the wealth. It is nonsense. What's behind it is that they want to tax the nasty babyboomers and strip them of the wealth that they managed to earn over their lifetime in order to redistribute it to the young, so that they can mainatin a cohesive society. Demos applauds it, because that is what leftwingers are all about. But it is just normal middleclass people they want to paint as bad and whom they want to tax until the pops squeak. They won't touch Sir Philip Green, Vodafone and the whizzkids in the banks, just millions of ordinary people.

Instead of providing jobs and industry for people, they will let casino capitalism rage on, and pinch from the middle classes to stop the poor rioting. He even calls his book 'The Pinch'.

They tell us we are about to see the biggest drop on living standards since the 1920s. So they have to find money from somewhere to placate the poor, and they will pinch it from the middle classes, the evil babyboomers. But the fat cats in their Rollers, the knighted Sir Fred Goodwins won't feel the pinch. They are painted as vital for the country, and heaven forfend they should ever pack up and leave the country. It is the babyboomers who are painted in a bad light, and predicatbly Demos applauds Willetts's book 'The Pinch', and doesn't ask the real question 'what about the rich?'

Has anyone here read Atlas Shrugged?
It's big & barmy but it sticks with you

claig, will the "baby boomers" be a new scapegoats for society's ills along with "benefit scroungers" and "asylum seekers".

I've never actually read it, but I have heard lots about it. I don't know too much about Ayn Rand, but my impression of her is she is a bit extreme. What do you think of her?

Apparently she used to have a group of followers, one of whom was a young Alan Greenspan, former Fed Chairman.

My grandma gets her state pension and a £400 winter fuel payment plus £25 when the temperature goes below 0.Shes had 5 £25 payments since December. Obviously this is enought to pay her winter heating bills. The problem is she is housebound and refuses to set up direct debits. I pay her fuel payments at the post office. In my opinion the payments should be made directly to the fuel supplier then everyones bills or majority of them would be paid and no one would get cut off. I would also imagine some people are not using the lump payment to pay off there fuel bills.

Cat, any chance of a potted critique of her views, I have been given a copy (audio book) but never listened to it, is it worth while.

yes they will. They will be fleeced and the tsars will then be able to say that we have social justice, as the boomers' money is handed over to the poor. Willetts's book is about the "intergenerational divide" i.e. it is the classic divide and rule tactic so beloved of socialists, just another variant on class war. Set one side against the other, and let the super rich and bankers carry on making hay.

it took me ages and unusually I had to skip large chunks where she goes off on one, but it is the most unusual book and provides a great deal of insight into our current situation. I keep thinking about it, especially the last sections.Terrifying.

suspect she was the sort of charismatic who was influential on her followers and the Greespan point is intersting.
don't know much about her, have only read the book, just wish someone else had as well!
(also, looking at yr posts Claig I think you might get a lot out of it)

Thanks, I will read it. I have already got it, along with some of her philosophical works on objectivism. Just never had the time to read them. If I remember rightly she is a bit of an extreme capitalist, believes in the 'superman' etc. and doesn't have much compassion for the poor or sick. I think she is an outright survival of the fittest type.

newwave it's so BLINKING enormous I've checked out wiki to avoid getting utterly bogged down.
There is a speech in the final chapter which lasts 70 pages, hence lots of flipping through:

the relevant wiki sections IMO are

Plot summary
Government and business
Property rights and individualism

""The sales of Atlas Shrugged have since then sharply increased, according to The Economist magazine and The New York Times. The Economist reported that the fifty-two-year-old novel ranked #33 among Amazon.com's top-selling books on January 13, 2009 and that its thirty day sales average showed the novel selling three times faster than during the same period of the previous year. With an attached sales chart, The Economist reported that sales "spikes" of the book seemed to coincide with the release of economic data. Subsequently, on April 2, 2009, Atlas Shrugged ranked #1 in the "Fiction and Literature" category at Amazon and #15 in overall sales.[69][70][71] Total sales of the novel in 2009 exceeded 500,000 copies.[72]"

she is hard core, certainly and unpalatable in many ways
but she has a cold and logical eye which is uncommon