Another one, lined up ready to got to Prison!! Reason?? failure to pay council Tax. -- ok??   so he should have paid the tax, but not the increased % -- BUT??  DID 'THEY' HAVE TO PUT HANDCUFFS ON HIM A 76 YEAR OLD MAN?? -- DID 'THEY' THINK HE WAS GOING TO RUNAWAY
 THIS HAPPENS WHILE THE REAL CRIMINALS ARE BEING LET OUT OF PRISON EARLY, BECAUSE ALL PRISONS ARE FULL??
DON'T FORGET THE HIGH % OF RE-OFFENDERS =AGAIN AND AGAIN??
AND YES. AGAIN!! - LIKENED TO A 'BADGE OF HONOUR' ??
KEEP 'HITTING' THE 'LITTLE' PEOPLE!!  BUT BEWARE??  ONE DAY, THEY MAY 'BITE' BACK ??

Hello Mac, There Is Pride for you?? Not just for himself, but for ALL those who one day, may well find themselves  In 'Dire' straights?? -- What would You Chose?? Heating and Food, or Paying the ever Increasing Bills that come to You ?? -- He, is not the only one facing a jail sentence, there are at least Two More --- Waiting!!
Are We Pensioners Worth It ?? YES!! ALL Pensioners Deserve A Decent Income, To Be Able To Have  A Reasonable Standard of Living, In their twilight Years??
BACK UP?? IS THAT A JOKE??  THERE IS NO BACKUP!!  UNLESS ONE IS ON BENIFITS??  THERE IS NO EQUALITY FOR SENIOR CITIZENS, UNLESS I AM MISSING SOMETHING??

Hi Mac, Council Tenants Not Paying their rent??  To my knowledge here Those Tenants, have been LET OFF. on two seperate occassions!! -- Jails Full NAH!!  They always seem to find room for the Dear Olde Pensioners!! ---
 Is that Not --- Dual Standards?? -- Criminals cannot Help doing what they Do ??  - They had a very hard upbringing ?? and they are so very Depressed??
 What Do They Think Senior Citizens  Feel Like??
 We Offer absolutely No Excuses!! We are just The 'Fall guys'??

On Both Counts, I Totally Agree!!-----
 Many Senior's have had Good business Skills AND Not been Greedy with the profits?? -- Past decades?? How many Businesses, ran into Debt and went to The wall?? Very Few!!
There is so much one could say. The trouble being, one would have a 'mental breakdown' -- It Tears the heart out??

 


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MEDIA IGNORING PLIGHT OF ELDERLY


08:00 - 15 March 2008



Help for pensioners in the Budget amounted to an increase in the winter heating allowance. MICHAEL THOMPSON, a member of the Devon Pensioners Action Forum and founder of Link-Age/ Countrywide, says the Labour Government's policies on pensions, tax and community care are a disgrace. Here, he calls on the media to do more to help stop pensioners being treated as second-class citizens

The nationalisation of Northern Rock by the Government has proved that they can find money when they want to.

Because the Government constantly pleads poverty when it comes to increasing state pensions for our elderly people, suddenly we hear cries of unaffordability, and so the Government's attitude represents perpetual misery for Britain's 12 million pensioners since the earnings link was cut by the Thatcher Governmnent in 1980, and replaced by excessively costly means-testing.



For more than two decades, pensioners' National Insurance contributions, taxes and sacrifices have been forgotten.

Pensioners are being treated like second-class citizens, having to rely on a meagre state pension and means-tested handouts following a 30-, 40- and 50-year working life funding the system for a thoroughly adequate basic state retirement pension that should now directly increase with national prosperity.

This region has the highest proportion of elderly people in Britain. Some are more well off with other income, and some are not, but the fact remains that this generation's rights are being swept under the carpet by the severe lack of coverage by the BBC television media.

Consequently, the West Country's leading MPs are not being challenged half as much as they should be. The BBC should let the pensioners ask the questions, and not the pundits who are merely media puppets.

The South West BBC media should drop its "political impartiality" and stand in the pensioners' corner and fight for their rights to dignity in retirement, in state care, in state pensions, health, and community care.

For it is this generation who fought for all of us; rather than ignore their plight, we should be helping. It is now our duty to fight for them, to help them.

OUR elderly people should be above party politics, but they are not, they are knee-deep in constant media impartiality, and suffering from apathy, caused by British complacency from the top down.

Our MPs must be challenged. They must be reminded fully of the contributions people who have now retired have made to this country, to provide adequate state pensions for their own generation when they were working to provide money to run our NHS, to provide money to pay for the free education of our MPs, and to found the prosperity of the whole country.

This is the rhetoric that must be used by the television pundits because our MPs treat our elderly people as nuisance value, surplus to requirements, and a burden to society as a whole, and they are getting away with it due to political correctness; the media are dumbing us down.

The British TV media run this country because, as a nation, we are largely apathetic to other people's needs. We are largely a politically docile nation. If what was happening to Britain's 12 million elderly people was happening in other EU countries, it would not last five minutes, let alone almost 30 years.

I am ashamed to be British because of the way we treat our elderly people, and this recent business with the elderly man, Jack Tagg, who is losing his sight for want of an operation, is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg.

I thank God for Mr Tagg's doctor, Martin Wrankin; his words on the BBC news, about also being ashamed to be British, hit home, because he was right.

This generation has given us everything yet, from the top down, we fundamentally ignore them. Jack Tagg's situation is fortunate because, at least, he has a house he can sell, "as wrong as that is", but what about those pensioners in Jack Tagg's same situation who are in rented accommodation, who have no assets to fall back on? What happens to them due to Government cost-cutting ?

THIS New Labour Government, while continuing Thatcher policies on tax, pensions, and community care, is a disgrace; they should not be allowed to continue running this country under the banner of a "Labour" Government.

"Traditional Labour" was the architect of the welfare state, of the NHS, of community care, of upholding the state pension without means-testing but by linking state pensions directly to national prosperity through the earnings link.

But New Labour has reneged on everything "traditional Labour" stood for.

I hope that the regional BBC TV media respond to this because, fundamentally, Britain's elderly people are being treated like everybody else in the name of media impartiality, and they should not be treated like everybody else, because our pensioners are a special case.

They have worked hard all their lives in worse conditions than people today; they were much harder times in the past, not least because our oldest pensioners did not have a welfare state - if they didn't work, they didn't eat.

They worked longer hours and for a lot less money than today, and their taxes and NI contributions were "mandatory".

Yet now, 60 years on, their basic state pension is just £87 a week, which is rising to £90 in April, an increase of £3 a week, while our utilities increase way above inflation, and a lot of women pensioners receive much less in state pension provision.

I would ask just what kind of country are we to treat our elderly people like this?

Because it is not about cost, it is about attitude; the money is there, but why the attitude?

Why isn't old age in Britain revered ?

Michael Thompson, who lives at Brixham in Devon, welcomes contact on pensions issues on 01803 857020 after 7pm.

 

Well I'll get my own back on voting day - that's a guarantee..... and it'll be no good Brown promising some last minute deal just before the elections - too late now.

Michael,then its high time we got someone else to stand up for us.
I am sick of all the fiddling that goes on here,and the free handouts.
Councellors..........handouts for extentions and keeping rates high.
Mps for their homes abroad and their family jobs !

10 out of 10 Michael for trying good on ya !