Raised State Pension Age

Dear Boris,

You promised before the election that would you look again at the issue of increased State Pension Age.

This issue remains high on the agenda for 3.8 million women but that number is rapidly increasing as those born in the sixties and their daughters and granddaughters are waking up not only to the hardships endured by their family members but their own future which has no light at the end of the tunnel. Men too are increasingly aware of their own hiked up retirement age as well as the impact that this is having on their wives, sisters and mothers. The storm is brewing. Turbulently.

It seems from your own privileged perspective to be as remote an issue to you as though perhaps we may reside in Antarctica. In oblivion. But you have read the stories. I wonder how much attention you gave to the individual stories of hardship? The millions of them? That you can sleep easily knowing that many women are being forced to sell their homes through lack of any income?

Were you aware of the humiliating position many older women find themselves in, unable to claim state pension and unable to claim Universal Credit either because they have not been in a position to work during the two preceding years of a claim? This is relevant to me personally as having had nearly twenty years of zero-hour contracts and no ability to save or plan as I lurched from one short term agency role to the next, I was forced to leave my family and take work abroad. In Cairo. Once out there I became aware of the thousands of other British workers out there (mainly teachers but others too) who found it impossible in their fifties or sixties to obtain work back in the UK. All having to part company with their families to do so. So many of the job searches are pointless because the skills or experience required are irrelevant to a mature man or woman in their sixties. They haven't all had the benefit of IT training during their school years. Are you aware that training opportunities are not on offer for this age group? That the competitive jobs market ensures age discrimination is well and truly alive? That many are unable to accept work because of health or caring responsibilities? Is all this falling on deaf ears?
Are you able to blot out the very real suffering without a care in the world?

The winter of discontent is here. It is blowing up a storm. It is real. Very real. To ignore the plight of a generation of women whose lives were geared towards home and family responsibilities is nothing short of cruel. Who are not in a position to care for their husbands - many of whom are older than them as their own health is in decline. Is it right, just and proper that after a life-time of work, many are having to ask their children for financial support because they have no income of their own? That Universal Credit actually expects this as the income of children still living in the home ( because they can't afford a home of their own) now has to pay the cost of living of their own mother or father? I have had to ask for help myself from my daughter's first wage packet in her new job when she will only earn £16 000 per year. She should be saving for her own future with her boyfriend not helping me out. I am unable to ask my son as he is only a student himself. Is this situation right? Whatever happened to Dignity in Old Age? Would you wish this on your own mother? Have you ever tried the long back-breaking 12 hour shifts that many factories and companies now expect? Often without a toilet or drink's break? I'm sure you don't. Have any idea. As you sit in your ivory palace drinking champagne. And you talk about raising £120 million just to chime Big Ben? Have you any idea how insulting that is? You may as well be Marie Antoinette calling "Let them eat cake!"

But the Winter of Discontent is brewing.