Chris Huhne

Perhaps they're giving him enough rope, Riverwalk. I agree, he's a complete git!

With any luck he will not live to be old enough to become a greedy git himself. Hold on though, he doesn't need to grow old for that . . . .

I loath this type of dichotomous thinking - the divisiveness of it. It just highlights his own need for column space. What's with all the point scoring? Not clever at all. Just plain silly.

Just read the article Riverwalk what a prize git he is why do the media give him the time of day,and with regard to housing and help to buy scheme that shows you how much he knows as the scheme has been around for years by way of "shared ownership schemes" which I used in the 90's possibly before for the selling of new properties.

whenim64, Hope you are right, and I expect more of the Guardian than such a loaded headline

Not even accurate as he says nothing has been done about WFA abroad and it is being taken away. (It will be taken away in Spain and France but not Italy apparently. This is because all the French tropical islands have been included in the calculation so the mean winter temperature in France is above the UK. Nothing to do with the fact that there are so many more UK retired in France than in Italy you understand). Perhaps he was away somewhere when that was announced?
I really object to pensions being included in benefits. I distinctly remember paying out each month for many years. Doesn't he?

it is in the guardian - what do you expect. trouble is lots of people will believe what he has written - that the old are all rich and selfish. (a whole generation or two condemned then)

I seem to remember there was a Guardian editorial a few weeks ago expressing similar views.

I don't like Huhne's style but some of what he says has the ring of truth though it is not the fault of our generation, just luck, that we were born into a time of high employment, relative ease of house buying, fewer elderly to take care of out of the taxes we were then paying and, lastly, for some of us, huge profits on the houses we bought years ago.

And yes I know we 'worked hard and paid in' but that could be seen as a privilege as well as a virtue in these days of high unemployment.

I 'm generalising, of course. I know that not all folks of my generation had an easy time of it.

Economics aside, is there any need for him to use such vitriolic language as "they are the past, not the future"?

He didn't mind helping himself to the public purse: bought a £600 iPad on Parliamentary expenses days before resigning when facing trial for perverting the course of justice; also justified charging for a trouser press on the grounds that he needed to look smart for work.

I've just read the Guardian article. Chris Huhne should be ashamed of writing such hateful drivel. Most people I know in their 50's and onwards are willingly helping their grown up children with free child care, mortgages, school fees and food bills all from their hard earned savings. Are these the selfish old?
I don't suppose Mr Huhne will have the worry of relying on the hard pressed NHS in his Autumn years and reading his article perhaps the best move for many would be the workhouse. I suggest he spends his Christmas reflecting how he tore his family apart through his arrogance, greed, selfishness and ambition.

He says the old are the past so maybe he should just kill off all the oldies or they can all down tools and do nothing. It would surely be interesting to see how the 'young ' would manage.

Yes, we had our younger years in times of higher employment but our expectations were far lower. we didn't get into debt on our credit cards because we didn't have one. We only bought what we could afford and pay for we saved until we could. My DH and I spent three years saving for a deposit on our first home. We had no holidays, no concerts, cinema visits, new clothes. We didn't drink and we didn't smoke. If we wanted coffee we made it at home and took packed lunches to work. With a young family, days out were at the local park with fishing nets, crickets sets not at expensive theme parks. If shopping trips involved lunch times, that was another packed lunch no 'MacciDees'. Childrens, parties were held at home and we played games. No magicians, clowns or other outside entertainers. Big presents were for Chrismas and birthdays only.

I'm not denying that life can be tough but it always has been and I don't see why our generation should take all the blame.

Message deleted by Gransnet at poster's request.

Um no he hasn't Jane. He has done his time for point swapping. I believe Denis McShane who did get sent down today has been linked with Chris Huhne's ex-wife Vicky Price.
It is the Westminster Village dontcha know....

Yes Mamie I've just reported my own post and asked GN to delete it
Senior moment
!!

As for his comments about voting… doe he want to disenfranchise pensioners to make a fairer society?

Don"t see why any of us Seniors should take any of the blame !
Flaming cheek , that was the way the cookie crumbled , we were lucky , probably did not see it at the time , that is the way things go I am afraid !

He is disgraceful ! for him

The old are so useless that the government is now making them work until they drop - make your minds up please.

We are not the past -we are the present. Get used to it!

Any cookies that were around, we probably baked ourselves, and bought the ingredients for too.

In our childhood, we lived without our fathers until they were demobbed and came home as strangers, to a country in debt to the USA, who kindly made us a loan which was being paid back until very recently. We lived without sweets except as a treat. Cars were a rarity, so were fridges and freezers. Microwaves and ready meals were still to be invented. TV was in black and white and a 15 inch screen was enormous.

We waited until we were grown-up to get a job that paid a grown-up wage, and we worked as apprentices on almost nothing until we had learnt how to do it. We waited until we were married and established to start a family - or we struggled on our own if we jumped the gun and put the cart before the horse. We waited until we had saved up enough to buy the clothes and furniture we wanted, or we made our own.

Our parents believed that we would have a better life than they had had, and we did, once we had waited and worked for it. Meanwhile, we paid into Government schemes - National Insurance, for instance, to make sure that we would be OK in our old age, because we remembered how our parents had to help our grandparents when the retired.

Now we are no longer working, no longer waiting. We have arrived at that happy plateau where we can stop and coast along.

Oh! No! We are now just another asset to be stripped and plundered.

Recent research suggests that today's young people will be the first for many generations not to end up better off than their parents.

They will be worse off in terms of earnings, pensions, retirement age and house ownership. Added to this with many more people living longer there will be a greater burden on them for the care of the elderly.

What is the answer , I ask ?

Eloquently put Elegran.
And as well as paying for the State Pension through our NI contributions, even pensioners on modest incomes are paying income tax and continuing to contribute to the Exchequer.

Chris Huhne aged 59 - it's heading your way mate.

It wasn't our fault. I only remember two holidays abroad, and neither of those was luxurious - one was two weeks camping in a Boy Scout type tent, the other a week's coach tour. I don't have a wardrobe full of designer clothes, or a cellar full of expensive booze. We did not go out on the town except for an occasional celebration. My children did not go to prestigious private schools. I did not take out a sequence of mortgages for ever more enormous and showy houses. I lived within my means and never got into debt.

Older people all over the country, in all kinds of professions and jobs, and individually helping out their children and grandchildren and doing voluntary work to help provide srvices for those in worse circumstances to them. Without them, social services would be overwhelmed and grind to a halt and have to be resuscitated with injections of cash - public money, which would come from the same hard-pressed taxpayers as the pensions we contributed into for decades.