'Britain is no country for old men who fear the financial terminators who urge Government to kill their state pension's Triple Lock

Google says that : 'Britain is no Country for Old Men' is 'A long-running personal commentary and blog inspired by the famous opening line of W.B. Yeats' poem 'Sailing to Byzantium', which also popularized the title of the Cormac McCarthy novel and Coen brothers film 'No country for Old Men' : The blog's creator chose the title after feeling mistreated and treated as "invisible" or dismissed due to being perceived as elderly. The writer uses the space to comment on how older people are treated in modern society.  Posts highlight issues like elder care, loneliness, and age discrimination in public services.' (link)

When I started this blog in 2009, I described myself as a : 'Post-Second World War baby boomer looking for and finding some surprising answers to the question : 'Is Britain no country for Old Men'. Now, seventeen years and over 3,000,000 page views later, it is time for me to my old stomping ground and find answers to that first question. "Is Britain no country for old men ?"

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At the moment old men and women in Britain are financially uniquely blessed by the 'Triple Lock' which means that every year, the Government looks at three separate figures to determine the pension increase for the upcoming tax year. They are : 

Inflation : The percentage rise in prices, measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in the 12 months up to September of the previous year.

Average wage growth : The average increase in total wages across Britain. 

A flat 2.5% : A guaranteed minimum increase.

And this is perceived in some quarters to be the over generous bit : 

Which ever of these three numbers is the highest becomes the percentage increase in the state pension in the New Year. 

Terminator Number One : The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC)

Representing 65,000 firms which employ 7.4 million workers it has urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, to axe the state pension pledge and save billions of pounds. The BCC has said that this could save the Exchequer paying out £3.3bn over two years. The lobby group has urged him to cut employers' National Insurance contributions which would boost youth employment and save nearly £10bn over the long term.  

Terminator Number Two : The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 

Its published blunt economic survey called the triple lock "unusually generous" and warned it adds significant fiscal risk that could see Britain's debt balloon to 200% of GDP by 2050. 

Terminator Number Three : The Tony Blair Institute (TBI)

The former Prime Minister's think tank has urged Labour to tear up the "unaffordable" pledge, even floating a radical overhaul to replace the state pension entirely with a flexible "lifespan fund".

Terminator Number Four : The Resolution Foundation

This influential living-standards think tank has consistently pressured the government to phase out the system due to its soaring costs. Notably, Torsten Bell, the former head of the foundation and current Labour pensions policy figure, previously described the system as "silly".

Terminator Number Five : The Green Party 

Ahead of the last election formally proposed replacing it with a "double lock" pegged only to the higher of inflation or earnings and dropping the 2.5% promise.

Terminator Number Six : Sir Howard Davies

The former chairman of the NatWest bank has publicly agreed that the country "can't afford" the policy in its current state.  

Terminators Numbers Seven and Eight : Prime Minister Burnham's Independent Economists, Jim O'Neill (former Goldman Sachs Chief Economist) and Andy Haldane (former Chief Economist at the Bank of England) 

Both have both urged the Prime Minister to scrap the lock. O'Neill has labelled the policy "bonkers" and a "golden opportunity" to repair public finances, while Haldane suggested the savings could help plug the defence budget deficit.

Terminator Number Nine : Mitchell Palmer 

The right-wing economist from the free-market Adam Smith Institute, recently appointed as an adviser to Reform UK's Robert Jenrick who has heavily criticised the triple lock as an expensive and "unsustainable" welfare measure. 

Terminators Number Ten : Cross-Party Politicians and Peers in the House of Lords Peers

Multiple members of the House of Lords have clashed over the escalating costs of the Triple Lock with several peers calling for an immediate replacement. Baroness Thérèse Coffey: the former Conservative minister for the Department of Work and Pensions suggested that the triple lock has achieved its original purpose of rebuilding pension value and should "probably be replaced be with a more stable 'double lock'. 

Graeme Downie: A Labour backbencher who has broken ranks to state that the current system is costing too much money and should be scrapped to boost UK defence spending. He has said that the Government should be brave enough to ask older people who "benefited financially from peace to make a greater contribution to future national security. "

About 1.1 million pensioners in Britain or roughly 12% to 13% of all pensioners rely solely on the State Pension and related state benefits                                     for their income.

Britain fondly remembers an old singer-songwriter called Reg Presley and a band called 'The Troggs' who gave the world 'Love is All Around'

Singer-songwriter Reg, best known as the lead singer with 'The Troggs' died at the age of 71 in 2013, but his musical legacy lives on.

He was born Reginald Maurice Ball in Andover, Hampshire where his father was a bus driver and his mother ran a cafe. He attended Andover Secondary Modern School and left school at 15. He then played the guitar in a local skiffle group and by day worked as a bricklayer. He helped form 'The Troglodytes' which won a 'Battle of the Bands' talent contest in Oxford in 1965 and sent a demo tape to the rock entrepreneur Larry Page, who signed them on and shortened their name to 'The Troggs' and had their debut single with 'Lost Girl'. (link)

Next came 'Wild Thing', written by James Wesley Voight, younger brother of actor Jon, under the name of Chip Taylor which the band recorded in one complete take at Olympic Studios in London.(link) He was still working on a building site when he heard on the radio that 'Wild Thing' had just risen from No 44 to No 8 in the hit parade and later said : "I thought, whew, and threw my trowel down. I put my head in the door and said, "clear out my tools, I'm off'."

He saw the song reach number 2 in the Britain and number 1 in the USA in the Summer of 1966 and was covered by 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience' at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where it as introduced as : 'The British/American joint 'national anthem'. (link)

Reg followed up with 'With a Girl Like You' which he wrote and which became the group's one and only number 1 in Britain.(link) and then wrote 'I Can't Control Myself'.(link) 

Next came 'Anyway That You Want Me'.(link) and 'Love is All Around (link) in 1967 and the band became part of the pop elite and setting off on a tour with the Walker Brothers he said : "It was so great. It was like landing on the moon for the first time."

With no further success, Reg saw the band split up in 1969 and then reform and saw it regaled as the inspiration for a host of performers, including Iggy Pop and was hailed by the American, Lester Bangs, in a 25,000 word eulogy as, the godfathers of punk, whose music was 'holy'. He credited them with igniting the raw energy that later fueled the punk rock movement. He admired their track "Wild Thing" and songs like "Give It To Me" for what he called, their direct, unvarnished adolescent lust and democratic sexual connection. He noted that they did not overthink their music like avant-garde or self-reflective bands, keeping their primitive art honest and effective.

In 1987, Reg was hailed by Bob Dylan on the set of Richard Marquand’s film, 'Hearts of Fire', in which he was appearing as an extra and said :“I had this guitar around my neck, Dylan recognised me. He came up and said : "How long have you been playing the guitar?" I said, "All bloody afternoon, mate." "

He then saw his slow descent from celebrity dramatically interrupted in 1994 when he was 53 years old when his composition, 'Love is all Around', which had been a Top 10 hit for 'The Troggs', 27 years earlier, covered by the Scottish group 'Wet Wet Wet' with singer Marti Pellow. This was used on the soundtrack of the film 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', reached No 1 and remained there for 15 weeks.(link)

Reg used substantial royalties from 'Love is All Around' to fund his personal investigations of what he felt were neglected areas of science, notably : alien spacecraft, lost civilisations and alchemy and in his 2002 book, 'Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us', concentrated on alien abductions, crop circles and what he saw as the close relationship between UFO’s and ancient monuments.

In 2003 he saw  a modified version of 'Love Is All Around' featured in the film 'Love Actually', performed by actor Bill Nighy. (link)

His friend, Keith Altham once said of him : "I have always liked Reg, because he has an innocence about him, in a profession dominated by people who are self-important and unreceptive. Even when he is wrong, he is sincerely wrong. He is very likeable. His interests are harmless. He is not mad.”

In December 2012 he was diagnosed with lung cancer after becoming ill during a tour in Germany and wrote to his fans on the band's website: "I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad. However I've had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years … I shall miss you all. Lots of Love."

Britain is now a country where old men lead shorter and shorter 'healthy lives' before they die

Healthy life expectancy for men in Britain has fallen from 62.9 years in the 2012-14 period to 60.7 years in 2022-24 and from 63.7 to 60.9 years for women over the same timeframe.

According to the Office for National Statistics, this means that the proportion of life a man spends in good health is down from 79% to 77% and, for a woman, from 77% to 73%.

The stark reality is that men and women in Britain are spending fewer years in good health than they were a decade ago. This sharp decline in Britain’s healthy life expectancy, the amount of time someone spends free of illness or disability, is in sharp contrast to its recent rise in most other rich countries around the world. The fact is that Britain's population’s health is poor, getting worse and not undergoing the same steady improvement for old men seen in countries such as Japan, Norway and Spain.

The decline in Britons’ health in recent years is so significant that, in more than 90% of Britain, people now start suffering from illness before the state pension age of 66.

 Dr Jennifer Dixon, the Health Foundation’s Chief Executive said : “These findings reveal a stark truth – the UK’s health is going backwards. The lights on the dashboard are flashing red. We are the most obese country in western Europe, mental ill health has surged to unprecedented levels and more people than ever before are living with chronic health conditions.”

The Office for National Statistics stated in its Report that : 'Obesity – which is leading to more cases of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer and high numbers of deaths caused by alcohol, drugs and suicide help explain the loss of two years of illness-free life'. In addition it said that people’s worsening self-reported health and deep health inequalities between rich and poor are also key factors. Its report found that Britain was one of only five countries where healthy life expectancy has declined, and it had fallen from 14th to 20th in the 21-nation international league table, with only the USA below it.

Britain has deep and widening inequalities in healthy life expectancy. In wealthy Richmond upon Thames, London, the average man enjoys 69.3 years and average woman 70.3 years in good health. Whereas in Blackpool an average man in Blackpool gets just 50.9 years. 

The Report found that the UK was one of only five countries where healthy life expectancy has declined, and it had fallen from 14th to 20th in the 21-nation international league table, with only the USA below it.

Britain is no country for sick old men who live in an idyllic Lake District village called Coniston

After having a succession of family doctors for 170 years, the village of Coniston, nestled in the Cumbrian Mountains, has lost its last doctor and has been unable to find a replacement. Its present population numbers 800 and despite inducements, like an advertising campaign stating that with seven pubs “we’ll never run out of beer”, alas, not a single permanent medic has come forward to fill the breach. 

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Furness has said it would be a “tragedy” to lose the village GP service for the first time since the 1850s. He went on to say : “Small surgeries like this just have to exist because they cover vast rural areas and an elderly population and we’re not tolerating it closing. Once you lose this you lose it for good, and it’s all part and parcel of the atrophying of rural communities. It’s a move that just leads to substantial Lake District villages becoming ghost towns.”

Coniston, with its surgery in Wraysdale House, is the latest victim of a chronic shortage of doctors nationwide in Britain after years of underinvestment and the demands of more and more old men and women with increasingly complex illness. Nearly one in three of the parish residents in Coniston are over 65, while about one in seven are disabled. 

At the moment they are not without a doctor but, following
the retirement of Dr. Frey and departure of Dr. Abbas in 2025, a 'caretaker team' was brought in to ensure the continuity of general medical services and although it is in place there is uncertainty regarding the long-term future of the surgery. If it closes, patients would have an hour round trip by car to the nearest full-time surgery in the market town of Ulverston and travelling by bus would take about two hours and include an almost half-hour walk. 

The Coniston Patient Group, which has fought for more than a decade to keep the surgery open has said : “We will not accept the loss of our GP service without a renewed and determined effort to find a provider. We have demonstrated overwhelming local support and a clear clinical need.” 

Videographers Jago Miller and Russell Howard enlisted the support of villagers to highlight the benefits of living in Coniston. “It’s been a real community effort,” Tracy Coward, Chair of Coniston Parish Council, told the information website, 'Cumbria Crack'. “We just wanted to get the word out that there is a fantastic opportunity to come to Coniston and work as a GP. We’re a friendly community and everyone pulled together to make the film.” Within 24 hours, 38,000 people had watched the film which has been shared on Facebook. A previous similar appeal to find a new headteacher worked and film-makers hope applicants will be tempted to apply. Tracy said : “I think you have to make your own luck and we’re hopeful the film will make a difference.” (link) 

Britain, sadly, is no longer a country for an old rocker called Chris Rea who won't be driving home this Christmas

Chris, who has died at the age of 74 had health problems which began when he was 43 years old, back in 1994, when he developed peritonitis and stomach complications. Things got worse six years later when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, underwent a 'Whipple procedure' and lost the head of his pancreas and part of his duodenum, bile duct and gall bladder. As a consequence of this, he developed diabetes and a generally weaker immune system and had to take thirty-four pills and seven injections a day.

He said : "It's not until you become seriously ill and you nearly die and you're at home for six months, that you suddenly stop, to realise that this isn't the way I intended it to be in the beginning. Everything that you've done falls away and start wondering why you went through all that rock business stuff."

Eight years ago he suffered a stroke, which left him with slurred speech and reduced movement in his arms and fingers and soon afterwards he quit smoking to deter further strokes and recovered well enough to record his 24th album that September, 'Road songs for Lovers'. (link) On tour again, he was at his 35th concert of his 37-venue tour when he collapsed in Oxford.

The genesis of his classic 'Driving Home for Christmas' is laced with romance. It was 1978, he was 27 years old and working at Abbey Road Studios in London and trying to emulate success of 'Fool If You Think It's Over.' (link) His wife Joan drove down from where they lived in Middlesborough in her Austin Mini to pick him up for the Christmas break. It was cheaper to do this than travel by train, since he couldn't afford the ticket. As he said :

"My career at that point was really on the floor. I'd ceased to become the popstar the record companies wanted me to be and I was about to be dropped. So it was pretty ropey when we left Abbey Road that night. We had been discussing opening an Italian restaurant and leaving the music business and we started to drive home. It was snowing when we left Abbey Road and we were young. we were in love. I just felt happy. I felt, stuff what's happening with me career, it's Christmas. There was a little tune in me head that just felt Christmassy" (link)

He recalled that he was stuck in heavy traffic with snow falling and started looking at the other drivers who "all looked so miserable. Jokingly I started singing : "We're driving home for Christmas." Whenever the street lights shone inside the car he "just scribbled the lyrics down, back of a fag packet, that kind of thing. I always do that." 

"I'm driving home for Christmas
Oh, I can't wait to see those faces
I'm driving home for Christmas, yeah
Well I'm moving down that line."

"Top to toe in tailbacks
Oh, I got red lights on the run
But soon there'll be a freeway, yeah
Get my feet on holy ground."

"I take look at the driver next to me
He's just the same
Just the same."

"Driving home for Christmas
With a thousand memories."

(Link)

The background to his feelings about Christmas were all tied up with his memories as a kid :
"I was very happy person in Middlesborough. We were Irish-Italians. Total family, there was nine of us. Christmas was huge. Christmas was more special then. I always loved coming down about four o'clock in the morning and it would be icy wastes or snow outside and the fire was still on. Magic." (link)

He recalled : 

"We eventually got home about half past five in the morning. What I always remember was when we opened the door of the house, that we were just about to loose the mortgage on, the snow fell in the hall and didn't melt. It was that cold and there was one letter on the floor and I opened it and it was a PRS statement for 'Fool If You think It's Over' in America and I passed this to Joan and she was having to check the noughts and it was just a Christmas story. I just said to her : "well we're gonna have the big tree then." (link)

Another ten years were to pass before, in 1988, Chris recorded and released the song for which he will always be remembered at this time of the year. This was six years before he was beset by a sea of troubles relating to his poor health, which at first made him reappraise the song because he associated it with his illness-free youth. 

He admitted that he "Went through a period of being cynical with all my illnesses, I couldnt go there. It used to make me depressed. I used to think of a time when I wasn't ill."

He did, however, make peace with his song and confessed :

"I quite like it now. It's one of those silly moments and I think we all get silly at Christmas." (link)

'Britain is No Country for Old Men' has finally arrived and a Google search reveals :

 Page views : 3129

Britain is no country for hundred year old Second World War veteran, Alec Penstone

When interviewed on TV by Kate Garraway on 'Good Morning Britain', Alec, a 100-year-old veteran of the Second World War was asked what his message was at this time when Britain remembers the service men and women who had died in War. He then stunned her and her fellow host, Adil Ray and 700,000 viewers when he replied :

“My message is, I can see in my mind's eye those rows and rows of white stones and all the hundreds of my friends who gave their lives, for what? The country of today? No, I'm sorry, but the sacrifice wasn't worth the result of what it is now. What we fought for was our freedom, but now it's a darn sight worse than when I fought for it".(link)

Since the interview his words continue to fuel debate online and Alec himself has not elaborated on what he meant and merely said : "It was my own personal opinion but evidently it touched a chord with very many people. My daughter has had so many messages from all over the world".

Alec, who was born in Hackney in Lindon in the spring of 1925, was 15 years old when  Germany began the bombing of London a year after the outbreak of the Second World War. He recalled : “As the Blitz started in London, I volunteered as a part time as a Air Raid Precautions messenger and served all the way throughout the Blitz in 1940- 41 as a messenger. The moments at 15 years of age, pulling bodies out of bombed buildings you grow up very quickly”.

He was called up for national service in the Royal Navy when he was 18 in 1943. He finished his training in December and was assigned on board a submarine and served on submarines before being moved to HMS Campania, an escort aircraft carrier and took part in protecting cargo ships from submarines in the Arctic Convoys to Russia. Alec recalled :

"The ASDIC cabinet where I worked, listening out for torpedoes was just above the bilges, right down underneath the recreation space, two decks down. So, we're about 27 feet beneath the water line in there. So, we all agreed that rather than die in the freezing water, we'd sooner go off with a bang. So, the three of us all had an agreement that we'd stay down there. And that was it".

The ship played a vital role in the D-Day landings as it was used to sweep for mines and search for U Boats. Then, after a week in the Normandy area, Alec and HMS Campania returned to their duties in the Arctic Convoy and made a total of 10 crossings.

After VE Day and the end of the War against Germany in Europe, Alec returned home to his fiancé Gladys, but it wasn’t long before he was drafted to help in the war effort still waging in the Far East. After securing a few extra days leave, the couple married on 21 July 1945 and then two days later Alec returned to duty.

Alec served for a further 14 months after the war ended before he was finally demobbed in September 1946. When he returned home much had changed including his relationship with his wife, but despite some initial setbacks Alec and Gladys went on to enjoy a marriage of 75 years until her death in 2020.

Perhaps we will never know what exactly Alec meant when in pain and anguish he remembered and asked the question : 

     "The hundreds of my friends who gave their lives, for what? "