[UK] Don't let us rot in poverty - OAPs

from Yahoo UK News

Pensioners from around the country have demanded that they not be left "to rot in poverty".

One thousand gathered to lobby Parliament to increase the basic state pension.

Many were dressed as skeletons to underline the fact that half a million pensioners die every year, and that three million will miss out on Government plans to link the payment to earnings in 2012.

Ministers announced earlier this year that they would restore the link, abolished under Margaret Thatcher in 1980, as part of widespread reform to the pensions system.

But campaigners on Wednesday poured scorn on the idea that introducing the link immediately was unaffordable.

They loudly cheered speakers at a meeting in Westminster who compared the lack of spending on the elderly with the billions used for defence.

One of the protestors, Jay Ginn, 67, of Coulsdon, Surrey, said: "I think it is time the government took notice of pensioners.

"They have increased money for the NHS, which is great, and for education, but the one big thing they haven't done is increased money for pensioners. In fact they have effectively reduced it.

"There are people here who fought in the war, who built this country up to what it is.

"They have worked hard all their lives building the country and now we are just left to rot in poverty. We are very angry about it."