In some ways, I wish we Brits were a bit more like the French. When George Osborne raised the pension age to 66 at first and now 67, we did what we always do. Nothing. I had a whole year of the state pension I was promised when I finished work stolen from me, my partner stands to lose seven years. A few whinges on the internet, usually by people who are expecting Michael Mansfield QC (he’d be a KC now, if he wasn’t retired), to argue in the High Court that the pension age for women should be 60. The internet meme read thus:
‘Did you know when I was 16, the government made an agreement with me, that if I paid National Insurance every week, they would give me a pension when I was 60
I kept my end of the deal and am still paying in!!
On the 5th and 6th of June, the UK Government may be made to give back the right to retire at 60 to all those women who worked and paid their National Insurance.
Currently their pension payout is delayed until 66 or 67 depending on date of birth.
We all know that the pension age for women born in the sixties has been raised. Did you know a campaign called ‘Back to 60 Movement’ has won the right to a Judicial Review and is taking the DWP to the High Court? On the 5th and 6th June they will attempt to get women justice over non consultation in raising the pensionable age to 66 and above.
Michael Mansfield QC will lead the case and the argument for the movement. However, there does not appear to be any media coverage regarding this significant event. That is why we’re raising the awareness now. Let’s hope for justice rightly deserved.
There appears to be a media blackout on this issue, which suggests that the government have put a block on the media reporting it. So let’s use social media for what it’s good at – share the hell out of this.’
As recently as this year, people have indeed been sharing the hell out of this. What a pity, then, that the case was heard, and lost, in 2019. That was the beginning and the end of the British campaign: over before it started. A hopelessly out-of-date meme shared mostly, I fear, by people who didn’t realise they were being fucked over years ago and/or weren’t paying sufficient attention.
The aforementioned French didn’t take things lying down when in 2023 President Macron increased the pension age from 62 to 64. There was huge opposition as the people told the government that they were happy with 62 as the retirement age. They still lost, though.
The campaign struggles on across the channel with a turn-up-late-to -work day to remind the government that the issue hasn’t gone away. The organisers know really that actually the issue has gone away in that the pension age increase is here to stay, but I guess this is a warning shot above the bows that any further attempts to raise the pension age will be met with resistance.
The French also argue from a position of strength. Their pensioners enjoy a pension based on the best 25 years of their working lives, up to a maximum of £1,642 a month. They pay a great deal more than we do by way of contributions but their pension is worth vastly more and they retire far earlier than we do. And the example of the French pensions system is one I use to illustrate when people say: “The country can’t afford to pay higher pensions and people will have to work longer to get the miserly pensions they already get.”
The people most likely to say we can’t afford higher pensions and people will have to work longer are not those who need higher pensions or will have to work for longer. The rich retire when they want. The rest of us can work until we drop. I have a very simple view on life which is this: everyone should have the opportunity to retire early, perhaps by a combination of occupational and state pensions, but those nearer the bottom rung of society should not be denied the same opportunity of the better-off. For one thing, we never know what tomorrow may bring.
How many people do you know who never even made it to pension age? And how do you know what tomorrow may bring? The first question is easy enough to answer, the second is nigh on impossible. My view, when I was nine years short of my pension age, was that I wasn’t going to take a chance. I’d happily take a financial hit in order to stop dancing to someone else’s tune, I did and I have never, once, regretted it.
I am very aware of the physical effects of age. I can feel them a lot of the time and I know I cannot do many of the things I want to do. Mostly on little things but this won’t get better. The things I want to do and need to do, I need to do them now.
The French have a deserved reputation for resistance and protest. Is our Britishness all about meek acceptance? Just do what you are told and all that. I rather fear it is and that is why governments can largely do what they like.
I wish we had a turn-up-late-to-work day, or something like it, just to show our so called leaders that actually we’d like an actual say in when we retire and numerous other things in life. I don’t remember the Conservative government of 2010, in which some Lib Dems took jobs, making a big deal of how they were going to force us to work longer for shit pensions, but they did it anyway and I well remember the waves of apathy that greeted the decision, particularly from those who had already retired.
The later pension ages steal lives, too, in many cases seven years of life. People effectively forced to work when they might otherwise be able to spend their latter days with those they love. If you accept the fact that this is your only life and that you are not going to survive your death, as those with faith believe, it might be an idea to think this through. The French did and still do. Maybe we should take a leaf out of their book because on this matter I think they are absolutely bang on.
