Old age pension is an entitlement payback – not a benefit

To contemplate removing it from a section of people for any reason makes it a fraudulent Ponzi scheme that Madoff would be proud of. Over those years, the more you earned, the more you paid due to it being percentage linked. At the end everyone gets the same amount based on the number of years’ contributions and not the amount. So those who have paid in the most to the ‘scheme’ share the same pension pay-out as everyone else. Had individuals had the right to opt out and pay in to their own pension fund, the return would be far greater than the mismanaged state-run one. Everyone accepts the basis of the state pension as fair and equitable for all and the status quo should maintain. What we are seeing is what a state on its way to autocracy will adopt as a policy. Seek out a minority to make an example of and rely on the herd majority accepting it as it will not affect them. Soon it becomes vilification of that minority: the road well travelled by national socialism and other autocratic states. The promise of a state contributory pension arbitrarily removed to make up the shortcomings of management and budgetary shortfall shames you all; and that is if there is a deficit when they rely on ‘Walt Disney’ accounts. Stop the grandiose ‘must-have’ schemes and get back to a balanced need basis as promised. £400,000 to have another expert consider the runway extension again? You always find money to satisfy your own egos and pet ‘contributory’ projects. When will we see deputies with spinal fortitude stand up to the machinery which creates this chaos? Probably when the desert sands freeze and the camels come skating home.

JANSON BEWEY