This is Peter Hitchens’s Mail on Sunday column

The really bad thing about modern politicians is the way they punish people for trying to be good. When a marriage is in trouble, the state takes the side of the spouse who wants to break it up. When a young student is starting out in life, he or she is forced to go deep into debt.

All around us we see dishonesty and crime flourish, cynical loan-sharks and gambling joints allowed to prey on the weak and foolish, as the greedy and selfish push to the front of the queue and the kind and considerate are left till last.

But until last week I didn’t realise what a horrible thing the Government has done to those on the verge of qualifying for their pensions after saving carefully all their lives. A reader, let us call her Kathy, wrote to me to explain exactly how this has affected her.

Kathy is now 61 and has paid full National Insurance contributions for 39 years. Five years ago, she was made redundant. At first she went self-employed and held several contract or freelance posts, and one apparently permanent job which did not last. In fact, there are few of these around for anyone, old or young, these days.

As she says: ‘I should have been able to draw on my state pension at age 60 but due to government changes I won’t get a state pension for another five and a half years. I am therefore expected to work until this age, which I don’t have a problem doing – except that I can’t find a new job.’

No wonder. Far too many employers simply won’t look at job applicants in their 50s or 60s, leaving many thousands of men and women in a horrible limbo. To begin with, Kathy was able to get a small payment in the form of Jobseeker’s Allowance (not unjustly, as she has never ceased to seek work).

Kathy has always done what she was brought up to do. She thought she had looked after her future. She lived frugally to buy her own home, while saving carefully for her retirement. But as soon as she took money out of her (very modest) pension pot to make ends meet, the Jobseeker’s Allowance stopped. When she protested, she was advised by an official to sell her home. As she says: ‘Why should I have to when I’ve now worked for more than 40 years, paid 39 years’ full National Insurance but am not able to draw on my state pension?

‘If the Government had not been under-handed in advising this group of women who fall within this age category then I would not be looking for any benefit help as I would have drawn my state pension at age 60.

‘It’s disgraceful that women caught up in this very unfair change to their state pension should end up in the stressful situation that I now find myself in. I have no husband or partner to support me and have never expected any help until now.’

I asked the Government about this, and they said blandly: ‘We have to take income and capital into account when calculating someone’s entitlement to means-tested benefits.

‘For those below state pension age, any funds held in a pension pot are disregarded, but if funds are withdrawn they will be taken into account.’ Well, yes, I can see that. But the nation owes Kathy the pension she paid for, and it’s dodging its duty.

Why pretend there is such a thing as ‘National Insurance’ if it can simply be postponed for years to suit the Treasury which, as we all know, wastes money all over the place elsewhere? What would happen to a private company that promised a pension and then failed to deliver it on the promised date?

I’m all in favour of a welfare state, for those who genuinely cannot cope and also for those who contribute. Is it so hard to design it in such a way that it cares for the truly needy, rewards the provident and is tough on the feckless and the cynical? It seems so.

Charity means ALWAYS saying No to beggars

One of the wickedest things you can do is to take advantage of the natural charity of honest people. The springs of kindness will dry up if people conclude that beggars are cheats and frauds. Every person who lies for a handout helps bring this about.

Look at the wretched behaviour of Stewart Fenton, who pretended to be a homeless ex-soldier when he was neither of those things and was getting benefits.

Is he the only one? About ten times a week I harden my already far-from-soft heart and politely refuse a beggar’s request for money (on one occasion when I wasn’t so polite I ended up with a black eye).

Sometimes, if they claim to need the fare home from my local station, I say I will go with them to the ticket window and pay. So far they have always melted away at this point. But otherwise I try to prove to myself that I am not horribly mean by giving a fixed sum to a local homeless charity for each time I say ‘Sorry, no.’

Actually, I think this is at worst a neutral thing to do. Giving cash seldom helps anyone, and often harms them. And these days you are often passing money straight to the drug dealers who sometimes stand visibly nearby, waiting menacingly for their money. What good does that do?

Once again, many of us make the basic mistake of doing what makes us feel good, rather than what actually does good.

Don’t feel guilty about saying no, as long as you help in other, better ways.

Of course France would never in a thousand years have considered giving a British firm the contract to make its medals. Quite right, too. The reason why we have even discussed awarding such a contract to the French is that we believe, as they do not, in the absolute rule of law – the thing which distinguishes us from all the rest of Europe. So when we sign an agreement saying our markets are open, we mean it. And when they sign it, they don’t. The only way we would ever prosper in the EU is if we sank to their standards.

You may wonder what happened to the three people arrested and held overnight for daring to protest at last October’s visit by the president of China, that callous, touchy and aggressive despotism. One of them was barged and grabbed by a helmeted police heavy. All, disgracefully, had their homes searched. All were, in the end, released without charge. In that case, how can this heavy-handed treatment possibly be justified?

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