Identifying with Gaby Hinsliff’s notion of “knackered older women” directly affected by the austerity pension cut, including the Tory MP Nadine Dorries, I certainly feel part of the “wronged generation” (Opinion, 26 February). Having worked as a teacher full time and then part time after having children, I am now contemplating retirement aged 66. My free national bus pass, which friends and relatives have had from age 60, will also not be accessible until then. Added to this, many of the boomerang generation of recent graduates have yet to achieve financial independence, and we fiftysomethings are holding on to permanent jobs to support children working as part of the new generation of “flexible workers”. Mostly this means zero-hours contracts. George Osborne’s decision to equalise state pension retirement age for men and women, and subliminally accelerate the process, has certainly evoked a real sense of injustice. I may not be as “exciting” to the media as Helen Mirren, but I do have a vote, and the “angry buzz” of the Waspi campaign group is about to gain a new recruit.
Rose Kavanagh
Cambridge
• There is contention with the Department for Work and Pensions about the original dates at which women were informed of proposed pensions changes, and it appears that many letters were not sent out until 2009, 14 years after the Pensions Act. What can’t be disputed is that notice dates were again changed in 2011 (the “fast-forwarding” referred to by Gaby), making it unrealistic and unreasonable to expect women to change plans yet again before their expected retirement age. It is this “moving the goalposts” without warning and essentially reneging on a contract which I think has particularly angered women of this age group.
Larraine Duquemin
Amble, Northumberland
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