The teachers are quite right, they did not cause the economic situation we are all in, that was caused, in the main, by bankers who greedily went after business without due caution or probity.

Conveniently forgetting the problem that the economic situation that we find ourselves in currently actually dates back to the early noughties in the UK - not as recently as 2007.  In fact, and Labour Party analysts accept this, the problems started as early as 2002 and Blair and Brown's claim to have **** the boom/bust cycle.  In doing so, the 2 decided that they could afford to increase the nation's government borrowing far faster than the economy could cope with, which meant that - when the banking crisis hit in mid-2007, the economy didn't have the strength that many other European economies had to resist the downturn and bounce back quickly.

Those people are still receiving bonuses.

and this fact is iniquitous, so we need to be writing to the Chancellor and the PM insisting that - at least in the banks that are publicly owned - such bonuses should be paid to match the performances of the businesses (and lost where appropriate).

...  the gap between rich and poor is still increasing at an accelerating rate.

  and this is important: the gap never began to close under Labour which was contrary to their promises in 1997.  This is not to say that the current Government is any better.

So why can we 'no longer afford' decent pensions for people?  Yes of course the fact that people are living longer is an important point, but this 'inability to afford' is very much a choice, a choice made by those at the top, the rich, who are pocketing money as fast as they can.  These are the people who control what you are told, these are the people who tell you that there is no longer any money to support you in your old age.

That is a fairly simple question to answer, and has very little to do with the 'people at the top'.  The State Pension is - and always has been - paid for by the next generation.  In recent years, the birth rate in the UK has dropped, thus ensuring that fewer people in the 20s and 30s age bracket are paying into the pot that pays for today's pensions and those that most of us will be anticipating in the next 10-15 years.  On top of that, medical advances are ensuring that an increasing number of people live for longer after retirement.  When most of us were born, the average length of life after retirement was 11 years; it is now 21 and counting.  The result is a smaller pot that has to go further than before.

While investment bankers sun themselves by their swimming pools in the Italian hills, the poor are paying for their mistakes.

As I said earlier, don't blame the bankers alone; politicians across the world are probably as much to blame - not to mention the massive increase in individual, personal debt.


If the unions had any real concern for the welfare of their members, they would be striking on behalf of the thousands of women who will be caught in the trap that is the increased age of retirement and increased age of payment of the state pension, without the opportunity to build a pot to tide them over.  This is largely the 57-62 year-olds who weren't allowed by successive Governments to have a permanent personal pension plan, and who are being caught by the acceleration in the change of both UK and European legislation on retirement and pension payments.