Thanks

‘The Economist’ has suggested that “Some of the benefits now provided look ripe for cutting. Pensioners, for example, get free bus travel and also receive tax-free winter fuel payments on top of their state pension…” I know that economics is called the dismal science, but this is taking it a bit too far.

We really need to make sure that this does not happen. Political parties tend to be pretty much uninterested in the older end of the population, for all kinds of reasons. A journalist at the Conservative conference has commented that the obvious difference between this and the Labour conference is that the Conservatives look much younger. If this is correct, then expect even less interest in older people, and hence a greater risk of this kind of cut, if the Conservatives win the next election.

Free bus travel is one of those benefits which are virtually impossible to quantify. The bus still goes if fewer pensioners get onto it (actually, it is wrong to call them pensioners – free bus travel starts at 60), so the fact that these passengers are not paying a fare has scant impact on the system. Figures show that more elderly people travel because of the free offer – would the country really be better off if they sat at home instead? An awful lot of town centres would be even quieter during the day if this happened, and a rise in daytime TV watching is not going to boost our cultural life too much, and I would suggest will only bring forward the onset of dementia.

While I see nothing wrong with the winter fuel payment, it is a bit arbitrary, and harder to justify. I had no sense of suddenly needing two extra loads of logs when I reached 60, but I’m happy if the government decides to give them to me. The sensible thing might be to raise the qualifying age for this – it does seem a bit odd that while we are talking about making people work for longer in order to collect their state pension, we are also suggesting that six or seven years before they cease work, they need heating up a bit. State-supplied thermal underwear – that’s the kind of forward thinking we need from political parties. Carbon-neutral vests rather than burning more fuel. And we could train the over 65s to make them, thus creating a virtuous circle.

There we are – Invest in Vests. Reduction of the government deficit, keeping the elderly in work, and a solution to global warming all in one go. Let ‘The Economist’ spend its time explaining why bankers desperately need million pound bonuses in order to do their jobs well, and we’ll stick to the knitting.