It was, from what I gather, George Bernard Shaw who made the famous quote that "Youth was wasted on the young". Now I am in the later years of my life and look back I can see how I wasted my youth, although I must admit to having a good time spending my earnings on booze and sports cars.
It was not until I was married and into my thirties, when working in our family business, I began to ponder about later life and a personal pension, which in reality was far too late to build up enough in the pension pot for retirement without money worries.
Pensioners such as myself are given the impression, by this current Labour Government, that they are a nuisance and a burden leaching on society by relying on the state pension to survive.
However, little is said about the fact people of my age grew up expecting to receive a state pension when we retired and given the impression that by contributing to our tax and National Insurance payments throughout our working lives we were, in fact, funding our own state pensions so as not to be a burden on anyone.
Many of us, due to circumstances, were not able to provide substantial personal pensions, unlike those received by Civil Servants and many Ministers. I started work and paying tax and N.I. at the age of 17 and did not retire until the age of 66 when the retirement age was still 65. After 17 months of retirement I returned to work and resumed paying income tax for another two years. I know now, when it is far too late, as well as having a wild time in my youth, if I had had the foresight to put a bit away for later life I would have a decent pension now in retirement.
I worked in and also ran our small family business during some stressful times. Keeping the business afloat during the terrible recession in the early 1990's, which was created due to the insanity of the UK joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was a struggle. In order to survive in business and at home, due to not having a good income thanks the economy being wrecked to comply with our EU membership at the time, I had to reduce what I paid into my pension to survive, hence me now relying on the state pension as my personal pension is small, especially after the Chancellor takes a quarter of it in tax reducing its value even further.
As someone running a business I was also an unpaid tax collector. I had to charge my customers V.A.T. as well as collecting P.A.Y.E and N.I. and send it to the Government without thanks, remuneration or any consideration. In order to survive in business and continue collecting the states taxes I was working most days from 7.00 am to gone 9.00 pm and now I am being told that I and my state pension is a burden.
My late parents, who started our family business in 1946, did well having some good years in business during the 1960's before state bureaucracy went into overdrive, sadly, they never organised a private pension as they considered their homes as their pension. They had their main home in the Midlands and a holiday home in North Wales where they always planned to retire and for the sale of their Midlands home to be their pension pot. Sadly, they sold that house when property sales were slow, a year later property boomed and they could have got almost double the value.
If the pensions triple lock goes many pensioners, myself included, will go into a financial painful decline. Due to the actions of this Labour Government life for many pensioners has got worse. With pay rises for their trade union pals, the increase in employers N.I. and the hike in the minimum wage, inflation is putting the cost of everything up with pensioners being at the bottom of the pile for help. Billions are being spent on people who, by their actions, are criminals by arriving in the UK illegally in small, dangerous boats. The Government gives the impression these illegals are more important than pensioners who have paid into UK coffers for the majority of their lives, or our homeless ex servicemen, many of which are living rough on the streets while the criminals arriving illegally, are put up in hotels, fed, clothed and given expenses. At the same time many struggling UK subjects are either forgotten about or imprisoned if they dare say something about illegal immigrants the Government does to like on social media.
If the triple lock goes, which looks increasingly likely, the only way to help many hard pressed pensioners will be to increase the annual tax threshold from the current £12,570 to £20,000, which will also help those on low incomes. For many of us pensioners that would be a currently better option as every year, when we receive our small triple lock increase, the tax on our private pensions increases as well as our Council tax payments, not to forget rises in gas, electricity, food and much else. In reality the triple lock just increase the amount of tax many long suffering pensioners have to shell out to a Chancellor who has done nothing but to dig an increasingly large black financial hole since Labour was elected in 2024.
If the state pension comes under attack and the plan is to eventually eradicate it, then other options need to be considered well in advance. As N.I is now a general tax and, like the road fund licence, which is not used to build and repair roads anymore, N.I. just goes into the Chancellors piggy bank and then gets wasted on mad schemes such as net zero, diversity, woke as well as giving it all away to foreign countries who declare we have caused all their problems due to the slave trade and the industrial revolution! Those in employment will need to seriously be looking at providing for their later years when they are young and their employers will have to have pension schemes. For those increasing numbers who do not work and live off state handouts, the future looks uncertain, it is time for them to start looking for work.