I’m in total agreement with Blunkett, as long as the tax burden drops for those over retirement age to reflect that they are doing the country a favour by adding to the workforce, alongside giving them their pension. That is of course if it truly is a favour, right now I guess that there isn’t a drastic shortage of workers in the areas older people would be generally fit and knowledgable enough to work in…I guess looking forward to the future Blunkett is concerned that with an aging population this won’t be the case?

Work till I drop? Fuck that! It also goes against one of the key things about capitalism: getting paid highly for doing little work as possible! :D

I’m in total agreement with Blunkett,

My time and money belong to the state, the state tells me how, when and where I can spend them? Um, no thanks - or, “eff off”, if I was being impolite.

Blunkett’s lecture can be found on the Guardian website - I’m reading “should” as, “people will voluntarily comply or else”, rather than “it would be nice if”.

Instead of ridicule (and headlining it ‘work ’til you drop’ is ridiculous), this idea deserves serious consideration. We have to consider as a society whether it is reasonable to maintain a retirement age when people are fit and active for decades after it, and where it results in only half of the population being of working age.

Lifespans are likely to continue to increase and occupations which are damaging to health are likely to decrease as time goes on. As for your deliberately harsh reading of Blunkett’s use of the word “should”, remember that Blunkett is a former Minister with no power to threaten any compulsion.

This is really below par and you can do much better, Unity.

ukliberty…in context that statement is more of a “I agree if it’s not a compulsory or forced action” comment. I have no problem with able bodied people being encouraged to work longer if they wish to.

“…headlining it ‘work ’til you drop’ is ridiculous…”

How so? These are Blunkett’s exact words:

“…continue with some meaningful activity to the point of our incapacity overtaking us…”

“meaningful activity” = work

“our incapacity overtaking us” = dropping

Do you see now?

David Boothroyd, perhaps Unity should change the headline to “Blunkett says all of us should work until the point of our incapacity.”

I see little difference, however.

I think it’s pertinent to a point made by Unity in his previous article on LC, which is that people in general tolerate paying taxes “when they can see that somewhere down the line they’re going to benefit from it even if its not straight away.”

Similarly they will tolerate work while they see that “somewhere down the line they’re going to benefit from it even if its not straight away.”

Incentives matter. The sooner Labour MPs get this into their thick heads, the better.

People work to provide for themselves and their families, their children and perhaps their children’s children. Some work to provide for others. Many also work so that one day, a day when they are still capable of enjoying their leisure time, they no longer have to work. I do not see what is wrong with this. I do not get the same impression from Blunkett.

I look forward to Blunkett’s next speech, in which he’ll explain to the British Medical Association that what Britain really needs to solve its pensions crisis is a good old-fashioned flu pandemic.

Fit pensioners with electronic tags, and send them to an off-shore ‘processing centre’. And charge them for it.

(hat-tip David Blunkett policy maker)

Personally, I’d prefer it if we could enjoy meaningful productivity during the whole of our working lives, not just be tax slaves until retirement day.

I doubt that Blunkett really cares about the level of meaning we get from our activities and whether we live life-afirming, joyous and healthy lives, I suspect he’s only interested in boosting the income of HM Treasury as the way to keep Labour in power.

I suspect he’s only interested in boosting the income of HM Treasury as the way to keep Labour in power.

I don’t think he’s even that altruistic - my take on Blunkett’s comments is that he’d like us to work until we drop so that he can enjoy a leisurely retirement.

Blunkett’s argument would hold more water if he and his fellow MP’s had not voted themselves one of the best state pensions in Britain.

No working till they drop for current MP’s and their families.

I left school at age 15. I’m now 51 and I already receive a generous occupational pension. Nevertheless, I have a new job and I intend to continue in work until I’m 65 - then I’m done. That means, I will have worked, and paid tax and national insurance, for half a century and never claimed a penny in state benefits. So I will happily claim my old age pension and I expect the Exchequer to be only too happy to pay me back some of the money I’ve been paying in all these years. And if, for my last decade or two on this planet, I fancy tossing it off in Spain or on a remote Scottish island, while away my days playing golf or drinking myself to death ow whatever, that’s my business.

Mr Blunkett isn’t going to tell me how I should be spending the last years of my life. The money I claim in pension is simply the state honouring the contract it made with me back in 1977, when I started paying my contributions.

Bisonex: I think that’s the main point really..any changes proposed have to be for people aged under 18 now, to change the rules midgame is an awful thing to do…but Labour do it so well.

Ignore the fact that Blunkett is blind. Acknowledge that he entered politics in 1970 as a councillor and that his primary occupation has been polititcian/journalist thereafter.

According to Wikipedia: “He worked as a clerk typist between 1967 and 1969 and as a lecturer in industrial relations and politics between 1973 and 1981.” So he hasn’t had a traditional job for twenty seven years. Or thirty five years, if you include the crap house of political studies in further/higher education.

I never thought I would defend Blunkett, but give the bloke a bit of space. He doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, so give him some room to sort things out in his mind. His mates at Annabel’s assure me that he is a bright guy.

work ’til you drop eh?

I’d like to see Blunkett ‘dropped’……………..preferably from a scaffold with a rope around his neck.

Trouble is, we *do* need to make some changes to State Pensions/Retirement Age, and we need a serious debate about it a.s.a.p.

When the “over-65″ version of SP was introduced in 1925, avge life expectancy was 59. Now it’s pushing 80 - but not if you live in the North Glasgow Community Health Partnership area , of course. There it’s only 71 (68 for men)…but I digress :-)

How are we going to pay for this?

And how much should the qualifying retirement age rise by?

Just to declare my personal interest in this - I’m a full-time single parent who’s sprinting towards his 40th birthday, and has managed to put aside absolutely nothing for a pension to date…so I’ll probably keel over from a heart attack while serving a customer in B&Q when I’m in my mid-70s… :-)

We’ve managed to cope with a tripling of over-65s since 1911, so it shouldn’t be all that difficult to deal with a further 50% increase in the next 50 years.

I’m sure lots of over-65s would welcome the chance to take part in ‘meaningful activity’ and earn enough to make their semi-retirement more comfortable. Indeed, we’ve just had a case where an eminent professor as had to resort to legal action to overturn a decision to enforce retirement at 65.

The subtext to this tale, however, is that the poor - i.e. those who haven’t earned enough to provide a private income in retirement - should be ‘encouraged’ to keep working until they’re ready to drop. The underlying point being that high income earners like Mr Blunkett don’t want to be saddled with subsidising the pensions of low earners.