Work until you drop, Literally

It seems former DWP Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is not content with the 150,000 or so avoidable deaths inflicted on vulnerable people since 2010 and the misery of the disabled and poor caused by benefit cuts and the Universal Credit monster he birthed.

He has now turned his privileged eye onto pensions and a plan to push them even further away from people who need them – and Boris Johnson and his cronies like the cut of his jib (with the emphasis on cut).

The Daily Mirror’s reaction to the plan

The Tories intend to push the state pension age up even further than its already-raised 68 – to seventy-five years of age.

In doing so, they will – and they unquestionably know it – be condemning millions of working-class people, especially men, to die without ever receiving the pension for which they will have paid for decades.

To literally work until they drop.

Average life expectancy among men in many working-class areas is lower than the seventy-five they would need to reach in order to claim their state pittance – the UK already has the worst pension of any advanced nation:

But in many parts of the UK – especially its northern, working-class areas but also in parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, millions will not live to claim even that:

“Tories – if they can’t kill you, they’ll at least make sure you die in miserable poverty.”

The numbers missing out on their pensions under the Tory plan look set only to increase, because the impact of Tory government and cuts has been falling life expectancy for the first time in decades:

Tories – if they can’t kill you, they’ll at least make sure you die in miserable poverty.

But could this be Johnson’s ‘#DementiaTax‘ moment? In the 2017 general election campaign, Theresa May blundered in anouncing a plan to force older people to pay more for care in old age, which was quickly and accurately dubbed the ‘dementia tax’ – and then even made a shambles of climbing down from it. Given that Tory voters tend to be older, it was a disastrous error for her hopes of a majority in Parliament.

Boris Johnson is expected to call a general election this autumn – and to even consider this pensions move now only underlines both his absolute toxicity and his rash incompetence. It can only drive away the working-class leave voters he hopes will support him.

As long as they get to hear about it, of course. Over to you.

The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.

If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

Like this: Like Loading...