He’s at it again is our chancellor Jeremy C…Hunt. If you’re a middle-aged person, which in his world is anyone over 50, you should work until you drop. Only a few weeks ago, he was berating people who retired before the state pension age telling them to get off the golf course and get back to work. Now he tells them, via the oracle of hate speech, The Mail on Sunday, that now is not the time for people to put their feet up. That his latest comments come out just days before the budget cannot be seen as a coincidence. If not in this week’s budget then in a future one, he will move to make it much harder for people to retire before pension age. Here’s why.
One of the so-called benefits of Brexit is that we can no longer call on people from Europe to fill the gaps in our economy. And while immigration has actually gone up, mostly from countries like Pakistan, Nigeria and India, the gaps in the employment market haven’t been filled. As we are not going back into the EU, someone has to do these jobs. Hunt has concluded that older folk going back to work is the answer.
Many people, including me, have concluded that there is more to life than work. The carnage inflicted by Covid has made people’s minds up even more. If getting out of full-time work, or even work full stop, has a financial impact but you can still enjoy a decent standard of living, why carry on working or go back, likely into some poxy low paid, dead end job? Hunt won’t really be incentivising people to go back to work. He will try to force people back to work.
One thing he is sure to do is bring forward the next dates where the pension age will be increased. I had one year stolen from me by George Osborne when he was chancellor, my partner seven. Sooner, rather than later, Hunt will seek to further delay pension payments. And I would not be in the least bit surprised if he did not do something similar with public sector pensions, too. Plus subtle changes to taxation to make it harder for people to retire before he wants them to.
He may not make these changes on Wednesday because there is a general election coming and while the Tories core pensioner voters won’t care too much what happens to their children and indeed grandchildren, they know that anyone middle-aged and younger will be horrified at having to work longer and have extra years stolen from their pensions. But if the Tories win the election – and I would never write them off under any circumstances – this will happen within months of their re-election. Work longer for less. Tory Britain in a nutshell.
Hunt is coming after you, friends, and I mean anyone who hasn’t retired yet. Unless you are a fantastically rich man, like Jeremy Hunt for example, get ready to work forever. Because he means it, man.
