If I were the Prime Minister half way through my first term in office, I would be beginning to think about how I could be re-elected for a second term. I would want something that would appeal to a large number of voters. Something spectacular that would catch their attention!
The elderly are a larger group of people who vote more than others. There again, there have been lots of bad news in the last two years about poor care of older people in the NHS that won’t help.
Then I would remember that my nice Secretary of State for Works and Pensions – Mr Ian Duncan-Smith talked about a magical £140 state pension at the AGE UK Conference in 2011. Of course nothing happened because of these tough economic times. As well as this, with retirement age still so low, it would cost a fortune in the future years. Oh! and also because I made a promise before the election in a TV debate, that I would not take away the universal benefits older people receive, like winter fuel allowances, free TV licenses and free bus passes.
There again, I did say only until the next election.
So half way through my first term, which was mainly full of bad economic news, I am beginning to worry that I may not get re-elected. Let’s dust of that £140 pension idea and start all over again.
(See my earlier blogs “THE £140 PENSION ILLUSION” in the TAG CLOUD).
GrumbleSmiles 
With the £73K cap it is a tax on pensioners who have looked after themselves! What level of care if we all become state dependent on housing, care and support. We are the social voting block? for whom? Who has the advantage?? There will be no independent thoughts or actions by the british eccentrics like Livingstone, Churchill, Disrali, and a few more ordinary people who can think for themselves and their actions and thoughts are for the benifit of our society??? Not one herd of cattle or flock of sheep? We need to be old goats, with minds of our own!!!
Can’t believe what any politician says tell us the truth. JF
What politicians often forget is that the grey vote is increasingly powerful. In spite of their hollow promises, most older people are wise enough not to believe everything they are told.