Elderly people unable to manage on their pensions; so cold in winter they had to choose between heating their homes or eating; pensioners living in rented accommodation that was dank and dirty due to neglectful landlords. Stories like these cause an instant response in local newsrooms. Reporters like me were dispatched to relay the latest plights of the elderly on the evening news. The response from viewers of all ages was not only full of generous offers to help, but also of anger that these people who had worked all their lives should be treated so shabbily in their twilight years.
Woe betide any government unprepared to raise pensions.
Our politicians knew that treating the old with respect was crucial to their political longevity as it was to the concept of a civilised society. What's changed? Just about everything.
The BBC's decision to make people 75 and older pay for a TV licence is a disgrace. No doubt the Corporation expected a row, but it can't have realised how massive the protests would be. Choosing to alleviate its financial difficulties by isolating one vulnerable group smacks of deliberately selecting a weak target.
After all, aren't pensioners fair game now? Aren't the nation's biggest financial woes, from the appalling dearth of affordable homes for the young, to the crisis in the NHS, all down to the irritating tendency of older people to live longer, inconveniently developing dementia along the way, while stubbornly refusing to leave their homes, which are now worth unimaginable sums? So the BBC, politically correct to a fault, probably thought that making most over-75s pay for their TV licences would be a breeze, PR-wise.
The Corporation pays management and talent far too much. It behaves like a hugely successful global profit organisation, grossly profligate and complacent, taking no real commercial risks because the licence fee gives it a guaranteed income. Its most loyal viewers are the elderly. Not for much longer methinks.
The BBC's decision to make people 75 and older pay for a TV licence is a disgrace [FILE PIC] (Image: Getty Images/fStop)
R - AS I have written here before (and recently) I wish I had the simple certainties of faith that so many others do.
People such as my
