1950s-born women have suffered insult on top of injury in the course of their WASPI (Women Against State Pensions Age Increase) campaign to restore pensions stolen from them by Tory government changes to retirement laws – ministers have treated them with contempt, even suggesting that women in their sixties should take up apprenticeships to get by until they reach the increased pension age imposed on them.
Yesterday in the House of Commons, after Tory Chancellor Phillip Hammond delivered yet another ‘more of the same’, smoke-and-mirrors budget, they decided they had had enough and stood in the spectators’ gallery of the Commons Chamber to deliver their verdict on the whole Tory government: “Shame on You”:
And their chants met with a heart-warming and rousing response from the other side of the glass. As Tory MPs sat stony-faced, MPs on the left side of the Chamber rose to their feet in spontaneous applause – over the bemused attempt of Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to restore order:
The anger and resolution of the WASPI women needs to spread throughout a society that has been blighted far too long by the predations, lies and incompetence of the Tories – and to meet the solidarity of MPs to make change unstoppable.
With Labour a new force under Jeremy Corbyn, there is an alternative now. No wonder the Establishment is terrified.
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Speaking as a woman who had to work an extra 3 years before retiring, I don’t have an issue with retiring at the same time as men. These women don’t have much public support I’m afraid, they’d be better employed campaigning for a lower retirement age all round. It is also surprising just how many of them have avoided work altogether.
Why should having public support be relevant? On that basis, we should abolish any form of social security safety net because the public all think that benefit claimants are workshy scroungers.
Me – I tend to think that retirement is a massively outdated concept anyway. There are many people who are able and happy to keep on working way past any artifically imposed deadline, and others who should have stopped working many years before that same deadline. We need a complete rethink of the whole system of work, benefits and taxation. Alas, that’s about as likely to happen as, well, the WASPI women getting a moral hearing.
Retirement an outdated concept? I take it you do not earn a living via manual labour. That’s why the majority of working class men, not only die B4 their wives, but die B4 receiving a pension. Manual labouring kills people. There is no equality here,
I don’t think their issue was ‘retiring at the same time as men’ – it was the speed and lack of notification that gave no time for planning for retirement. They were just dumped virtually overnight. Perhaps someone like yourself was so well heeled you didn’t need the money. Many did.
I don’t think it’s just a case of women retiring at the same age as men.
The WASPI women were not notified beforehand, and whatever way you look at it, they are worse off, that money they were due was stolen.
Incidentally, I speak as someone who was lucky to get my pension at 60, just scraped through in time, although I retired 2 years later through choice.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, I am a waspi woman. I was aware I would have to work longer and planned accordingly. I also attended a campaign meeting but found it full of self absorbed middle class women with no work experience.
“Don’t have much public support” they do you know, they have a lot of support, fortunately from those that matter, I think your remarks are very judgemental and ill-informed.
Were you aware of that? Did you have a time machine or something? Most people had less than two years notice which is no time at all to manage your pension affairs.
Aged c.45 in 1995 when age increase was announced left only 15 years to compensate by increasing private provision – if my assumptions are correct.
In pension terms that wasn’t much notice so wouldn’t be surprising if not everyone was able to ‘plan accordingly’ surely?
@ David McNiven. Your comment shows that we live on different planets. There is no possibility of “increasing pensions” for the working class, we just got on with it. I didn’t like having to work 3 years extra but I was appalled by whining middle class women who had made little contribution to the economy over their lifetime, moaning about having to work as many years as men do. The real campaign should have been about exposing the lie that we can’t afford to pay pensions for all, a good medium would have been everyone gets a pension at 63. The idea that we can pay more in to our already awful pensions shows just how wide the gap is between the working class and liberal middle class Labour supporters.
Lundiel, please don’t assume you have the measure of me – my working life has been divided between office, labouring and factory work of the most physical kind.
I’m a fuck of a long way from the effete, privileged middle class weed you imagine.
Others here will also have had hard lives so please stop with the pythonesque hardship competition.
@lundiel – Read this
Many born in the 1950s are now unable to receive their state pension when they turn 60. The government announced changes back in 1995, designed to bring the qualifying age for woman into line with that of men by 2020. The rise in the state pension age for women from 60 to 65 was further revised in the 2011 Pensions Act, making it age 65 by 2018. In coming years up to November 2020 there will be a further rise to 66 – and 67 by 2028.
Alan Higham from advice website Pensions Champ says: “The changes in 1995 were reasonable, but for the fact that the government waited 14 years before starting to contact the women affected.
“The 2011 act further compounded the problem so that women were finding out for the first time after age 58 that they were not going to retire at 60, but instead at 66. Women entirely dependent on the state for their pension found a hole worth £48,000 in their plans. It is an appalling way to treat people.”
@ Pat Sorry I don’t get why you asked me to read that..I am one of those women, I worked an extra 3 years because I was born in 1953. I was aware of the changes and because I was already working it didn’t make much difference to me. The women it did affect in a big way were those who don’t have a job. I can’t remember how much notice I had, a couple of years I think when they sent me a pensions letter but like I said before, most women I know are not happy about it but it isn’t the issue it is for women not in work who suddenly find they are applying for jobs they don’t have the recent experience in, so they are very upset because they don’t want low waged jobs.
I think we’re going around in circles here! The fact you do not understand why I wanted you to read that last post explains everything. The very last sentence in your reply also suggests total ignorance of the cause and the fight that most have about the changes into pensions, to be frank you are on a completely different wave length!
Here is a statement by a Mr Higham (who was and I think still is involved in the legal side of WASPI)
He says it’s unclear when the Government first wrote to women born between April 1953 and April 1955 whose pension age had been moved in 1995 from age 60 to between age 63 and age 65. “My reading of the Government’s response is that no letter was sent about this change, possibly because a further change was in the pipeline. Their story becomes even worse,” he says.
There are of course many other points but unless you are prepared to do research into this and of course accept that there are others much worse off through no fault of their own than you then to continue is pointless….
And the story goes on –
This is my final comment on the matter. Mr Higam’s opinion is not my concern, the whole £48,000 claim is nonsense unless you think you have some kind of fixed right to a given figure. Women in work didn’t lose, they gained in earnings and pensions. Women on benefits still get their benefits until they reach the new pension age, and women who don’t work or claim benefits will have to make another arrangement. By the way, it was only women like myself who only had 2 years to prepare, on a sliding scale most had much longer. I imagine a woman planning to retire to her villa in Spain might be seriously miffed, but that’s the way it goes I’m afraid.
lundiel – No nothing other than your own welfare is your concern it seems, “I’m all right jack and *** everyone else”
So, raising a family doesn’t count as work then…
I never thought of it like that. I brought up a family and worked, there wasn’t the option of one or the other.
When we were children one parent’s wage could buy a house – today’s housing situation might be the most significant obstacle to our childrens’ future happiness.
The affordability of pensions and care costs for the elderly has historically been judged by the number of working people’s taxes needed to pay the bill.
Modern monetary theory adopted by a future Labour government will be able to cure many ills.
It was shameful to steal from waspi women and I hope amends will soon come.
Well said David McNiven …
Waspi women had the commitment of retirement @ 60 withdrawn without notice. Once that commitment was made it cannot be broken. In the spirit of gender equality, the pension age should be lowered to 60 for both sexes, opening opportunities for the next generation to step up. Do we work to live or live to work?