Golden age for Britain's oldies just a pipe dream
THAT'S it. We oldies have had enough.
There has to be a better place to live than this mad, dysfunctional country where our pensions are being constantly raided, the young no longer respect us and the Government thinks we should be working 'til we drop.
After a trip back from Belfast this week in a bus which rattled every bone in my body, leaving me sick at one point, I thought that if the bus company feels a tin can is good enough for a journey of approximately 40 minutes – a route I might add used a lot by older people at that time of the day – then it's time I weighed up my options in this country.
Not even in Crete, where I go every summer and where I use buses mostly, have I encountered such discomfort.
I know we've pot holes galore on our roads since the snow but Crete has pot holes too, much bigger ones, which their buses seem to negotiate with ease.
I'm not the only one fed up. Research by the Foreign Office indicates that record numbers of over-55s – 42 per cent - are considering moving abroad.
Four main reasons are given: the economy which is taking away their financial future, crime, anti-social behaviour and the climate.
In the decade following Labour's rise to power, more than 1.5 million British citizens moved abroad, with up to 200,000 leaving each year.
The over-55s feel this country has changed too much and not for the better. They can no longer identify with the country they grew up in.
As baby boomers, we worked hard to provide the taxes which re-built this country's infrastructure to make it a fit place for those coming behind them.
But what have we got in return for all that effort? Diminishing pensions and made to feel a burden on the state, as we watch public sector bosses paying themselves huge salaries and bonuses, and the banks being plied with billions of taxpayers' money.
So what are the top destinations for those retirees who've already gone and those who might be thinking of going?
Madeira, Crete, Spain, the South of France and Goa are the chosen countries. A third of those emigrating went to Australia or New Zealand, and one in 12 went to the US.
But the Foreign and Commonwealth Office report suggests that people shouldn't base their choice on the back of just a holiday visit.
Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant clearly doesn't understand how fed up people are in this country and rather naively suggests that "in the excitement of making plans for a future in the sun, people don't always think about the possible downsides or the problems that can occur". Can those problems be any worse than the ones would-be retirees to another country face here, year in, year out?
I know that all is not rosy in other countries. All day sunshine would not tempt me to live abroad. What makes me want to flee is the lack of power any of us has anymore.
We fear the next election because whichever party gets into power the priority will be to re-build our economy shattered by 12 years of Labour incompetence with taxpayers' money, and there's nothing any of us can do about it.
We face months of strikes by public sector workers fighting to maintain their annual pay rises. Why wouldn't they strike? This week Royal Mail caved into to its workers who caused mayhem in the run up to Christmas.
Their new generous deal involves a seven per cent pay rise up to 2012, a 1,400 bonus and increased maternity leave.
Yet my postal service is appalling and no amount of complaint from me has improved it. Where possible, I now hand deliver special event cards such as for birthdays and Mother's Day because I can't be sure they'll arrive on the day they should, if at all.
The public sector is a hungry, greedy beast which cares nothing for the rest of us and all governments simply give in to them.
Since Labour came to power, according to the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, millions of public sector workers' salaries have risen 15 per cent more than those in the private sector. This has largely been achieved through successful industrial action.
Yes, I would like to escape from all this. Tin can-like buses have been the last straw for me.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
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