If our politicians were wiser, they would wine and dine the elderly
The government policy-making machine is not unlike the Large Hadron Collider. First, there is a lot of heat and furore, culminating in a big bang, from which something very small may eventually emerge. Today's energy package is one such example.
In fairness, the deal that Gordon Brown will announce this morning is not the Higgs boson particle of No10 initiatives. The £1 billion plan to improve energy efficiency and reduce fuel bills offers more than a bit of loft-lagging. But its sensible prescription of longer-term initiatives, coupled with reinstating previous spending cutbacks, will not satisfy high expectations.
Unions and MPs demanding a windfall tax on energy companies will be angry. So will be Britain's pensioners, whose hopes of a one-off grant to help meet soaring bills will be dashed. Despite letting speculation build, the Government never contemplated handing out vouchers worth up to £150 to low-income families.
Last summer, however, Brown toyed seriously with offering £50. That idea, formally quashed in his "no giveaways" speech of a few days ago, was dumped because glitches in "information sharing" between departments made it impossible to pay those in need before next spring.
The warning by Unite's joint leader, Tony Woodley, that "we'll be lagging the coffins of the elderly" if we have a cold winter might have been inflammatory, but he had a point. Some 150,000 over-65s have died of cold-related illnesses in six years, and Age Concern has already warned that one in three pensioners may be in fuel poverty this year.
Today's announcement will leave older people "frustrated, worried and confused," a spokesman for the charity told me. "With the rising cost of food, as well as fuel, things look very grim indeed."
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When you are old and cold, you don't think too far ahead. The promise of snugly fitting windows next year will not warm hearts. Nor will the Government's advertising blitz.
Yes, you might save £100 a year if you turn off your computer and unplug your mobile phone charger, but cash-strapped octagenarians don't generally have BlackBerrys and laptops.
With luck, Brown's package will help redress iniquities which leave those who settle fuel bills by cheque or cash paying £89 more a year than those on direct debit. Help for the vulnerable has been whittled away, and "social" tariffs often cost more than market rates.
But if Brown angers pensioners today, as Age Concern predicts, then he will have failed, not just in social but in tactical terms. Neglect of older people, of which the fuel cost row is just the latest example, isn't primarily a parable of human misery. It's a story of electoral folly.
Age is the critical issue of this century. The average lifespan in the developed world is increasing by two years every decade, or five hours a day. That trend, unchanged in a century, means that the child born in Britain today is likely to live to 100. Near-immortality is in prospect; we are looking at the death of death itself.
The social consequences are immense, but so are the political ones. In the last election, 40 per cent of the electorate was elderly. If the next election is in 2010, half of all voters will be over 58.
The grey vote, and the white - the people most likely to cast their ballot - will choose governments of the future. And yet this powerful lobby is all but ignored by the two main political parties. Yes, Britain is unequal, as Brown says. But, beyond wealth or class, the hidden faultline is age.
There is a country of the young and a country of the old; the latter can be a bitter place.
Today, the mother of a friend is being cremated. Though she died with dignity, her children had the anguish of watching a sick parent slip between variable services. When my mother died in hospital not long ago, she was not badly cared for. But tests were slow, meals inedible and information sparse. There was a sense that human life belongs on a sliding value scale.
As the cost of survival increases with age, existence is seen as less precious. It's hard to get help at home, as local authorities cut spending. Many older people have to sell their homes to afford social care, or enter poor-value equity release deals.
Of those who go into care homes, two thirds are frightened, according to Stephen Burke of Counsel and Care. No wonder. As The Daily Telegraph reported this week, half of nursing home residents, or around 200,000, are drugged with a chemical cosh to subdue any symptoms of dementia.
One woman I know was transformed from a comatose shell to a bright 99-year-old who enjoyed a glass of sherry when, after a long battle by her daughters, her forced sedation was abandoned.
The treatment of older people is often unspeakable. If the life of any younger citizen bore so low a price, ministers would cry outrage. David Cameron has called it a "scandal" that people have to sell their homes to pay for care, but has not said what he would do about it.
The Government, meanwhile, is consulting on meeting the cost of care bills. Sometime next year, a proposal, such as social insurance, will emerge. But while the architecture of children's services has changed beyond measure, the elderly are virtually ignored.
Yet, as the former minister Stephen Byers says, an ageing population is "the new frontier for the welfare state".
Not that it's all about help and hand-outs. Britain is full of vibrant, paragliding, Harley-Davidson-riding oldies with spending power and a dim view of the grisly way in which Britain treats its elders. While inadequate pensions force some to slog until they drop, others, who would love to work, are thrown on the scrapheap.
Then there are the 50-somethings who might feel more inclined to vote Labour, or Conservative, if either party would offer flexible working hours, plus the "granny" equivalent of childcare vouchers to help them care for a dependent relative.
Labour is hunting for a big idea in the way that scientists in the Alps are pursuing the Higgs boson particle. Well, here it is. Focus on the ageing population who represent the black hole in British politics. A better deal for older people is suddenly the key to any government's longevity.