Is Labour engaged in an undeclared war on older people?

Is Labour engaged in an undeclared war on older people as many Silver Voices members believe?

Certainly, the evidence is stacking up from their first few months in office. Almost the first policy decision taken after the Labour landslide victory was to scrap the for more than 10 million pensioners.

This came as a bolt out of the blue and had not been in the party’s manifesto, shocking even the most loyal Labour supporters.

Clearly the move had been plan-ned in advance and was designed to show how tough Labour could be in Government.

For the relatively small savings that could be accrued, this was a political rather than an economic decision.

The cut has totally backfired as the political backlash over a manifestly cruel policy will now define Labour throughout this Parliament.

The next attack on older people was the decision to break their promise to implement the cap on the lifetime costs of social care,this year.

This limited reform would have gone some way in reducing the number of older people forced to sell their family home in order to cover the costs of residential care.

In opposition, Labour politicians often contrasted the free care available under the NHS for those living with cancer with the astronomical costs for those unlucky enough to have dementia.

Wes Streeting promised during the General Election campaign to implement the cap.

Now Labour has gone further to sideline the social care crisis for the rest of this Parliament. In setting up a commission to report back in 2028, Labour has ensured no radical reform will take place this decade, at a time when social care is facing an existential threat.

It is crazy for the Government to promise imminent fundamental NHS reforms without having an equivalent plan for social care.

Wes Streeting will never make significant inroads into the crisis in A&E services without sorting out social care. This political misjudgment will come back to bite him.

Just before Christmas, the Government decided to punish up to three million older women, born in the 1950s, by denying themthe compensation recommended by the Parliamentary Ombudsman for the delays in notifying them of the rise in their ages.

This disgusting decision flies in the face of all the promises made to support the Waspi women’s campaign by Labour when in opposition, including by Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall who announced the betrayal.

All these attacks reek of spite towards older people, a conscious attempt to scapegoat this generation for the financial problems the Government faces today.

These attitudes were whipped up in recent years by think tanks such as the Resolution Foundation, which fomented fake inter generational wars by suggesting that most older people were well-off, to the detriment of the young.

We now find the new Pensions Minister is one Torsten Bell MP, former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation.

This move fills me with dread about the future of our , as Mr Bell is a well-known opponent of the .

I have been unable to trace any speech from a Labour minister since their election which recognises the challenges faced by millions of older people on modest incomes.

Who has recognised that our is one of the lowest in the developed world, that the growing gap between the old and new state pensions is a national embarrassment, or that age discrimination in our public services, including the NHS, is endemic?

All we get is speculation about further attacks on the horizon, such as means-testing the , raising the age, or abolishing free prescriptions and the bus pass.

Even other policy areas such as the inheritance tax changes for farmers have an ageist dimension.

What have we done to deserve such opprobrium? Most of us have contributed significantly to economic growth, many continue to do so, we have paid our taxes for 50 years or more and often never claimed benefits.

It is clear to me that those driving policy in No10 and the Treasury view older people as second-class citizens and cash-cows, and they will not be content until we have been wrung dry.