Breaking the triple lock

The Welfare State acts as a social contract for the most part, in that most of the benefits are taken out in old age, but that your benefits are not paid for by you through your lifetime of contributions, but as your payments paid for the elderly generations then, your dotage is paid for by the current working ones.

Therefore the implicit messgae is, if you work and pay, your turn will come.

It is easy to forget this, and that those in retirement now see their pension as a reward for a lifetime of work and payments, but the sad truth is that their pensions come out of the same fnancial pot that has to pay for unemployment, social care, the sick, the disabled and so on.

There is only a certain amount of money to pay out.

At some point, one Goverment came up with the idea of a "triple-lock" on which state pension rises were to be based, so far so good. But this year the formula has produced an 8% pension rise, and with fewer people working, many more sick and on support, there isn't enough money.

And so either a removal of the triple lock or a change in the formula is being mooted, neither of which is popular with those on pensions as they see their "due" not being paid.

For the last two decades, Boomers have removed benefits from the young, from student grants, BBC 3 and the right to live and work in 27 EU counties, and questions are sure to be asked, why should the young support the old when the old has reduced social mobility as well as geographic mobility.

The social contract is under threat, as the young try to save for a house and retirement as the threat is that the state pension is to be withdrawn, and so, as ever, there are no easy answers, but the questions remain.

Jen and John voted for Johnson, they admit, to protect their pensions, not caring that anyone else might suffer, even if some have enough money saved not to need the pension.