WHAT are the politicians doing to the elderly people in this country who need care?
These are the same people who kissed their husbands, sons and daughters goodbye in 1940, not knowing whether they would see them again, to go and fight a dictator to make the world a safer place for us to live in.
Those left behind did war work and, perhaps, got bombed at night just to make the UK a better place in which to live. Yet how do we repay them?
Don’t forget these same elderly people have paid thousands of pounds in taxes all their lives. If they have been fortunate enough to own a motor car, they will have paid even more – with road tax, and taxes on petrol and insurance.
Even if they have managed to save some money, it is taxed.
Then there is VAT and taxes on tobacco, alcohol, entertainment, gas, electricity and water, and telephone calls.
The elderly are being priced out. There may be lots of two-for-the-price-of-one food bargains, but a lot of elderly people cannot even afford one.
I do appreciate there are some perks, like another 25 pence on your pension when you are 80, and a free TV licence at 75. And if you own some property you can sell it and go into a care home.
But after all the sacrifices and the taxes the elderly have paid, we should look after them properly and show them we appreciate what their families did for us in 1939-45.
MICHAEL MORLEY, Alpha Avenue, Garsington
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