Magic money tree forest

I WAS astounded to read the letter signed by five individuals calling for the state pension to start at 60 and for an immediate increase to over £21,000 — more than double the post April increase that already includes a 10.1% hike. Even the more extreme elements of the French protestors hadn’t come up with this proposal.

Presumably the current national debt of over £2400- billion (of which £420-billion related to covid expenditure) will be paid back out of the magic money tree forest? Interest on this debt in December 2022 alone was an eye watering £12.7-billion, yet here we have a proposal that would add probably over £100 billion to state pension costs.

Approximately 40 years ago there were five workers for every pensioner. Today there are only three. Does this group suggest that this additional cost is added to the UK debt mountain, or perhaps they expect the shrinking group of workers to pay even more tax to fund.

I have every sympathy for poorer pensioners but they of course do have the safety net of pensioner tax credit. My main concern for some years now is for the mid to lower income workers who have rent/ mortgage and child costs — something that many pensioners do not — and who also face cost of living pressures.

I look forward to this group explaining exactly how this astronomical proposed increase would be funded. Perhaps they can also confirm whether they are the same ‘Wake Up Britain!’ group who called for us to leave the EU. If so, brexit alone has already added 6% to food costs and reduced availability due to restrictions on foreign agricultural workers! 

Ashley Beare, Yelverton

Retirement age think tank

I READ with interest the letter by Wake Up Britain! in last week’s Tavistock Times, explaining that ‘state pension is not a benefit it is a right’, and I couldn’t find fault in a word of it. So why are these common-sense goals so difficult to achieve? 

In France the people are in revolt, Paris has a pungent smell of decay trickling-down its boulevards, while police and protesters throw projectiles at each other. The people of France rightly refuse to accept that they need to be like worker bees, expending every gram of their being for the benefit of the state. 

In the UK the age at which you can get a state pension could rise to 67 as early as 2026, making us joint leaders in late retirement age in Europe; some are mooting that in 30 years you may not be able to receive your pension until you are 75, if at all. 

The UK has one of the lowest state pensions in Europe, but money is much like water, there’s enough of it to go round, but it’s mostly in the wrong places. Allowing greedy billionaires to police themselves, the wealth and benefits of a society will always end up in their pockets, not yours. So power is for sale and only those at the top can afford it and use it to protect their wealth and increase it at the cost to all, regardless of the human and environmental damage caused, simply because nothing is more important to them than owning everything.  Are we expected to be contended with the scraps from our masters’ tables? We all know the trickle-down effect only works when you have a leaky roof and no wherewithal to repair it. 

As the cost of living reaches new atmospheric levels spiralling above the heads of the masses, those who can’t afford a roof to shelter them will have to sleep rough, and those who can’t afford food will watch their children starve, most charities are stretched beyond their breaking point and future generations may be considered nothing more than a commodity, here for the pleasure of the rich. So what can we do?  Should we stop empowering those who would rather spend your money on the weapons of war rather than investing in peace, feeding and housing the needy, and trying to educate the greedy, making them understand the value of us all? If we can manage that transformation we might then turn our collective abilities to solving the problems in our communities, like helping the old and sick, investing in future generations and giving all the possibility of hope and a fulfilling life. 

What a revolutionary thought, I think that’s called ‘empathy’.

Michael Fife Cook, Mary Tavy