Thank you Roger. You are correct, that is why I have changed my vote like a lot of other pensioners to the B.N.P.

Gordon Brown ensured that profits made through dividends received by private pension funds were taxed at 20%, the same level as income paid by the majority of working people in Britain.

Maggie Thatcher did much more damage by ensuring that local government pension schemes stopped contributions in the 80s to avoid people realising the true cost of the Poll Tax.

However, neither of these facts negate Roger's point - people currently on pensions, or due to receive them shortly have paid all their hard working lives towards a guarentee of a pension which meets their basic needs and rises with the cost of living. Tories and Liberals renege on this promise at their peril

Hear hear . . . I appreciate that many pensioners face hardship, especially over the winter months. But many do not. And for all the whingeing about how "we worked hard all our lives so we deserve more", I doubt whether they worked any harder than the present working generations -- at least those who can get a job -- are doing now. And we're having to do it for longer. So stop moaning.

Yes, Us pensioners have been there, got the "T" shirt etc. Worked a standard week of 44 hours at 15 years of age, if you went sick no wages, My wife had our 2 nd child at home at 7:30 pm, and I was on the night shift starting at 9:50pm the same day till 7.50 am next day. None of this silly fathers maternity leave for us, we were not wimps like today's parents. The governments contribution to our children was 8 shillings [ 40p ]a week for the 2nd child and that was that. So stop moaning.

I happen to agree with you on the most important priority. “Our Youth”.

At the moment youth aspiration is zero but the government are neglecting that as well.

Our future will depend on what the children at school leaving age do. Some will go on the Universities but it is wrong to encourage too many to do that because there are not the number of graduate entry jobs out there. Balance is required. It is the skills gap that we need to address. The level of training in this country is ridiculously low. We employ nurses from abroad, import brick layers and carpenters and fail to train our youth sufficiently to change a tap washer for themselves. Instead of giving our youths the skills required to help to help themselves and therefore the country we leave them to languish on benefits and destroy their aspirations. They should be the top priority.

So why are we getting the cuts in the value of our pensions? To allow £40K tax allowances for millionaires? To balance the books so that the unemployed can be paid benefits? To pay redundancy bills and create more pensioners so the private businesses can employ workers on minimum wages “with tax credits” to provide sub standard services? To bail out the banks that destroyed the value of our occupational pensions?

If we were all in it together it might be reasonable to ask pensioners to pull in their belts a little but we are not all in it together. We are taking 20% cuts to make the rich richer and that is evil. The government are not addressing the economic problems they are making them worse and failing to prepare for the future. This is bad government and we should all recognise it for what it is. Including the "Young Demographic" who should be worried about their children’s futures.

When the rich have sucked us dry, they leave the country taking our wealth with them because they have no customers left here and nobody left to exploit. That a view from the "Old Demographic".

It's difficult to see who those who suffer under unrestrained capitalism can vote for these days. My experience of the Blair / Brown "New" Labour is that it was just Tories Mk2. Their first priorities confirm this - 24 drinking, more casinos, sucking up to George Bush - surely there must have been other priorities after the Thatcher demolition job?