The cynical might say that newly arrived in power and with five years ahead in which bad stuff can be forgotten, the decision to keep the ‘triple lock’ in place might have been otherwise. Ensuring that the state pension goes up in line with the worst/best measure of inflation is expensive, but then so would be the votes lost by watering it down or scrapping it. Particularly as other benefits designed to ‘end pensioner poverty’, pension credits and the like have been watered down since G Brown introduced them. And those left are devilishly difficult and require huge amounts of patience to claim, as anyone who’s tackled the forms and ‘phone calls will tell you. At least once you have your state pension, you have it. For now.
“Why you should never retire”
On my 50th birthday, I will always remember, amongst the card or two I received was a letter from Saga’ who’d managed to find out my age through the wonder of the internet, and were pleased to tell me I now qualified to join my parents and go on holiday with them.
