Glenn

You paid in for forty years. Never missed a day you could help. Never took a penny you hadn't earned. And this is the country they handed you back. Four million people now on sickness benefit. Half a million of them under thirty, signed off before they ever clocked a single shift. Your taxes don't build roads anymore. They don't fix the hospital you wait eight months to be seen in. They go to a bill so big the government now spends more keeping people unwell than it raises from every wage in the land. And when that runs short, they print. And the few quid you saved buys less every year to plug a hole you never dug. You did everything right. They did everything wrong. And somehow it is you left with nothing.

Your father retired at sixty. He bought a caravan. He saw his grandkids on Tuesdays. He had time. You are sixty four. Your knees are gone. Your back is ruined. And they have moved the line again. Sixty seven. Then sixty eight. Then sixty nine. They sold three years of your retirement to balance their books. They sold five years of your wife's pension to balance their books. They will sell your children's whole retirement before they are done. Healthy life expectancy in this country is sixty three. You will retire sick. If you retire at all. The printer at Threadneedle Street never stops. The spending at the Treasury never stops. The excuses at Downing Street never stop. Three machines grinding through your life. You were not given more years to enjoy. You were given more years to serve.