We’re all in it together!

Not, I hasten to say, in the sense of everyone being equally impacted by austerity as falsely claimed by the government. Rather, I refer to all the age groups being important and integral parts of our social structure building it in the first place and contributing to sustaining it now and in the future.
I think this needs to be said because there has recently been another round of tabloid sniping at the policy of protecting the value of the state pension that has been promised by politicians in what threatens to be a very long and divisive run up to the next general election. One salient fact however is frequently overlooked: while pensioners are nearly all voters, few are single-issue voters. It is demeaning to suggest that they are.
Following the last general election, painful experiences of what politicians’ promises are really worth have been impressed on people’s memory and will not be forgotten. But there have nonetheless been disparaging comments about the older generation being an increasing burden on other generations and a drag on society as a whole.
The snipers peddle the false argument that older people are somehow exempt from the austerity-protracted recession with the economy, unlike some other countries with more sensible policies, still being 2% below the level of GDP before the banking crash (and manufacturing being 9% below its 2008 level). The truth is otherwise.
Our state pension levels are quite low relative to a number of western countries and the government has already sought ways to keep pension increases down. Witness the move to the slower rising CPI rather than the more realistic RPI not to mention the fact that the effective rate of inflation for pensioners is well above these average figures due to a higher proportion of income being spent on basics such as fuel and food.
And of course pensions are not a free benefit but have been paid for by a lifetime of National Insurance contributions. True, the older generation requires more health care but this also provides employment and the tax revenues on the incomes from those who work in the NHS.
There is possible further clawback in the pipeline (with the government having already trimmed winter fuel payments by 20%) and it is being equivocal about their future. Free travel passes and TV licenses (for the very elderly) are also under scrutiny.
All this as if current and soon-to-be pensioners were not substantially impacted by austere government policy already. All pensioners with savings – so most of this thrifty generation - have been severely hit by the artificially kept-down interest rates losing hundreds or thousands of pounds in precious interest income every year. And annuity values for those coming up for retirement have also tanked as another consequence of the nailing down of interest rates and the dubious policy of ‘quantitative easing’.
There is also the practice of the financial cartel (that I regret to say now also includes many building societies as well as the banks) of slicing away even further at interest rates on ISAs so that there’s now hardly any benefit from the tax-free nature of these investments. This along with the sneaky tactic of applying miserly rates when bonds mature. This is yet another example of the punishment of loyalty by our wonderful financial services ‘industry’ that this government is at such pains to protect.
All of this represents a massive transfer from the older generation to those much younger people (and many not so young) who have mortgages and to those who have run up debts just to survive (both these cases understandable) but also because of the ‘must have now’ profligacy promoted by commercial advertisers and on which the overdue, mildly encouraging but unbalanced economic recovery seems to depend.
But no doubt the pensioner generation who raised families and did things by the book will soldier on, carrying on putting into society through voluntary activities and reflecting on all that was built up by them – the National Health Service, the education system, the BBC and its widely respected World Service, the utilities and productive industry. All this of course prior to the modern curses of globalisation, privatisation, corporate greed, tax dodging, exploitative pricing and the discredited economics of austerity.
This is not to say that nothing can ever be changed. For example I for one would support the idea of winter fuel payments being taxable so that those eking out small pensions would continue to get the full amount but the better off amongst us would return something in tax. Similarly, bus passes and television licenses for the very elderly could remain free for those on low incomes and be counted as income in kind and incur a tax liability at graduated rates for those who have been able better to provided for themselves.
These possible cutbacks would be more palatable if the feral rich were made to pay their fair share of society-supporting taxes in ways that I have indicated in earlier postings. Then the money so generated should be invested in public works rather than tax cuts to provide jobs and training for young people – so much better than financial devices that get siphoned off by the banks.
Leaving aside this government's favouritism towards the outrageously wealthy, big business and those that fund their politics, there is still a sense in which most of us are in this together right across the generations. We have, over the years, built up a mutually supportive society, much of which still remains intact. This is something that’s going to be needed if the age of austerity is dragged on by the misconceived policies of this wretched government. We must resist being divided into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and maintain our strong social values and a society that is ‘connected’ across all age groups.
These are some of the reasons why I think that each generation should see itself not as an island but as part of the main and we should understand that in this sense we really are all in it together.