National Service for Pensioners

Just mildly curious about how a thread about the pronouncements of an unelected thirty-five year old "adviser" morphs into a thread about the tea-drinking habits of someone who served for decades as an MP?

ana, Tone's cup : probably his own blend from Fortnum's.

Hmm...how does that translate into mugs? I must drink about ten of those a day - what does that make me?

Tony Benn is more of a teacup socialist. I think he is a teetotaller, but is rumoured to drink about 14 cups of tea a day.

Well, as a baby-boomer, when I was 18 'coming of age' was 21, and vice versa, so I missed out on a decent present twice . Now I've reached 60 and I've got to wait until I'm nearly 62 to get the state pension, but I will be getting it too early to qualify for the new flat rate pension due to start in 2015-ish. And now, due to another cheating DH, I need to find another job as I won't qualify for much in the way of benefits when I leave him.

Bored? I wish I could find the time!

Same as a Champagne Socialist, I suppose.

johanna what's a drawing room socialist?

Yes nana , he has worked incredibly hard.
But I will always think of him as a drawing room socialist.

johanna I would challenge your description of Tony Benn..he has done a mass of 'grass roots' work. you may not agree with his politics but he has worked hard.

How much has he given to the Tory party? I assume it was substantial given that "call me Dave" saw fit to give him a Lordship

I think you could accuse him of a lot of things Stansgran, but he wasn't an MP. The Wikepedia page is quite interesting in terms of what he has done.

But seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up, could you? Do you think he would like to come on Gransnet to hear our views?

Ah, yes.
Totally forgot about Tony Benn.
The archetypal drawing room socialist.
Yuk.

and who is Lord wei-at 35 he is too young to deserve a lordship and an annuity in the House of Lords-he should be earning a living and paying taxes. I suspect he has been shoved upstairs because he is not much good at his job as an MP?
I loathe these career MPs-I heard Tony Benn's granddaughter say she was intending to stand for Parliament-she was 16 or 17 at the time and planning to switch from one grammar school to another totally forgetting her grandfather had done his best to close down opportunities for the rest of the populcae

And to play golf, probably....

DD reminded me of this: (from a Guardian article in March 2011)

"It could become the allegory of the "big society" age. The man appointed by the prime minister to kickstart a revolution in citizen activism is to scale back his hours after discovering that working for free three days a week is incompatible with "having a life".
Lord Wei of Shoreditch, who was given a Tory peerage last year and a desk in the Cabinet Office as the "big society tsar", is to reduce his hours on the project from three days a week to two, to allow him to see his family more and to take on other jobs to pay the bills."

No sense of duty?

My experience is similar to most of my close friends of similar age! DH recently tried to volunteer at local CAB but they had no more funding to train him due to government cuts!
I am a governor at a school, do volunteer reading support in a school, care for DGC so DDs can work. I started work in state sector teaching June 1972 and was made redundant due to government cuts to public sector in March 2011. I did not work for 3 yrs when kids were small but did do volunteering with playgroups/ youth clubs and shopping for the housebound in the time I was not in paid employment.
I have saved & paid extra into pension funds when I could and have moved house specifically to support my family to be able to go to work! So F-off lord Wei don't target me & my friends!

OK Alison. Understood. I didn't have kids until I was in my 30s. Nor did they.

This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'granny bashing'. It seems that whatever is going wrong with the country IT'S ALL OUR FAULT

This thread disappeared, and I'd only just finished reading the last post! I am so fed up with that happening!

Oh Annoble do please re-read my post, I wasn't 'tarring' anyone! I was just saying what our generation did.

On the subject of taking housing benefit away from the under 25s the other day I heard 2 young women who were really put out about it because they felt it was their right to have children when they wanted to and at whatever cost to the rest of us.

On another programme I heard that youngsters of today can't save for a mortgage because they expect to eat out twice a week and have all the other things we didn't have so don't have anything left to save.

We can't and I don't generalise about any age group but I do think that there is far too much demonising of the baby-boomers at the moment.

Oh dear Oh dear - what is the matter with Cameron's generation they all seem so immature, and say the most idiotic things. I blame the parents - oh could that be us!!??

These people are cretins! Many of us have been practising C's "Big Society" before he'd even learned to speak.

These precious little public school know alls know nothing.

As Bags says, who has been keeping events and groups running all these years, and who's been raising money for every good cause you could think of?

Bangs head against wall.

My DD wants my long case clock which I inherited from my GF.
She is not interested in my jewellry, so I think I'll leave it to DGD.

My senior GD has her eye on my ancestral antique chest of drawers! I may have to add a codicil to my will. The other GD has her eye on my jewellery such as it is. Don't think I have anything that the boys fancy!

If he wants to increase volunteering, then give some more money to the local organisations that act as clearing houses for local opportunities and are getting by on a shoestring.
And who does he think has been running U3As all these years I wonder.
It is just Big Society (Big Flop) being re-invented. Policitians are desperate for a "new idea" for a press release.