While I am sure that few people who are experiencing living on a pension will disagree that even if it is already hard living from day to day in these expensive times it becomes much worse and much harder at Christmas time.

Grans and grandads like to be able to treat their grandchildren at this time and they like to have a bit of luxury around them at this season too and yet many of them will be sad that they are unable to find the money to spend on their grandchildren or even their children during this so-called "festive" season.

While it is just wrong that the elderly should have to struggle from day to day just to survive it is an even greater indictment on this and past governments that the so-called Christmas bonus has been set at a tenner for thirty-seven years. ( since 1972 ). If it had been index-linked it would be worth something like £80.00 now, but of course, it was not.

Last year the chancellor said that a £60 extra bonus would be paid in January or February but he didn't say if this would be taken away again this year.

What the pensioners of this country want and need is no more charitable handouts, just a decent pension that is index-linked to the average wage and is able to do what the pensioners need so as not to feel as if life is a constant struggle any more.

I don't give a damn where this money is coming from as in this extremely rich country the way our pensioners are treated should be right at the top of the spending agenda and not somewhere near the bottom after all of those taxes have already been spent.

Of the £671billion taken in by the treasury in this year's budget the needs of the pensioners in this country should have been taken off before anything else was paid for.

( They say that "a nation's civilisation standard is set around how well it takes care of it's sick, it's elderly and it's vulnerable !" ).

Here is the budget pie-chart for 2009:


Anybody disagree ?

Last edited by papa_umau on Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

There are actually many ways that costs could be saved by government if they would just grasp the nettle and get on with it.

Here are just a few ways of saving billions of pounds:

1). Scrap the upgrading of Trident !

2). Scrap the proposed ID card scheme !

3). Think twice about spending billions on IT projects that often never work !

4). Stop ministers from deliberately overspending just to maintain each year's funding !

5). REALLY shut down two thirds of the expensive quangos that are bleeding us dry !

6). Stop ministers from chucking money at pet projects that are baseless !

7). Stop the billions of pounds that are thrown away every year on consultancies !

There are just seven ideas right off the top of my head that would save many billions of pounds, so why can they not do even these I have to ask ?

Thanks for that threadstart Paps as it is a very informative bit of work.

I have a good thirty years before I have to worry about being a pensioner and I hope that you have fixed it before then

Ha ha ha !

I don't think it will be "ME" that will fix it, but thanks for the vote of confidence anyway !