Pensioners left with crumbs

It is said the measure of a civilisation is how we treat our young and elderly.

The programme "Heat or Eat – the Pensioners' Dilemma" highlighted the tragedy facing some 1.2 million pensioners living alone on Pension Credit.

The conditions shown were a disgrace to a modern state.

The pensioners either had a few hours of help from carers or none at all.

To pay for a carer from private agencies was beyond the means of those whose need was greatest.

There is little care provided by Social Services because of cuts in government grants to local authorities.

We now have a situation where an ailing bank is given 25 billion pounds of public money to put them on their feet, while ailing pensioners are given crumbs from the exchequer.

Pensioner organisations like the National Pensioners' Convention are fighting for a decent pension that would enable them to pay for their own needs.

Had we been paid increases in pension linked to skilled workers' wages over the past 27 years our pensions would be compatible with those in Europe.

Instead we are 13th below the leading nations in the EU.

A country like Britain, supposedly the fifth richest economy in the world, pours money into wars that help neither us nor the people we have invaded.

We have a government that recently paid out further billions of pounds on Trident.

This weapon of mass destruction neither helps us nor saves the world.

Our eyes turn to two countries – Norway and Sweden, who don't spend money on wars or weapons of mass destruction but whose living standards and treatment of the young and old are the envy of the world.

C R Johnson,

Limes Avenue, Rowley Regis.