Have this week's events brought good news or bad for older
people?
By Simon Bottery, Director of Policy and Communications
James Holloway, Research and Policy Officer
This was a good week for intergenerational love
and a bad week for cynics. A Special Immigration
Appeal Commission decided that 26-year-old Katia Zatuliveter was
not a Russian spy but was in fact genuinely in love with
60-year-old Liberal Democrat MP (and Commons Defence Select
Committee member) Mike Hancock, with whom she had a four year
relationship. A previously unseen personal diary convinced the
commission that Ms Zatuliveter was genuinely fond of the MP,
calling him 'my darling teddy bear' and 'King Louis'. Shame on
anyone who thinks differently. You can read the full story
here.
Further cynic-confounding good news for older
people this week was released by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
whose most recent report into poverty and social exclusion showed
that for older people at risk of poverty, life has changed for the
better when looking at both the past ten years and the most recent
five years. In particular improvements have been sustained in
reducing deaths in deprived areas and fear of crime. One area
remains where there has been little improvement, and it's an
Independent Age hobby horse - uptake of benefits by older people,
which remains an area with much work still to do. As a matter
our very own Wise
Guide aims to tackle, many older people miss out
on benefits they are entitled too and live a poorer life as a
result.
As we've already said, it's been a bad week for
cynics, but the Chancellor's Autumn
Statement has left us with mixed emotions. While an
increase in the basic State Pension will benefit most older people,
we were unimpressed that Osborne chose to fund the increase by
raiding savings credit through increasing the threshold at which
older people are entitled to this benefit, so most definitely a
bad week for those people who may lose their
savings credit. We
responded, calling the strategy 'petty' in taking from 'quite
poor' to fund the 'very poor' akin to Robin Hood stealing from
Friar Tuck! Surely to be fair and equitable to all older
people, if Osborne wants to be as venerated as England's most
famous folk legend he better start adopting his economic
strategy!
