Pension tax

10:58am Saturday 10th May 2008

I paid into a private pension insurance scheme to give myself a reasonable standard of living when I retired. Every three months I should receive a cheque for £398. This quarter, to my utter amazement, I had been stopped £114 by the Inland Revenue. It's immoral, cruel and foolhardy for any government to act in this bombastic manner.

I met an elderly gentleman in tears on Hove seafront. He told me he had to sell his house as he no longer had enough money to pay the nursing home fees for his wife.

I saw on TV recently the case of an elderly man who was ill in a rest home. This gentleman died in the rest home because the Government would not pay for him to go into a nursing home where he would have received proper care for the aged and ill. Disgustingly one of the reasons he died was malnutrition.

Democracy has fallen by the wayside. We need a campaign to awaken the electorate. Don't they realise any glib individual can rise to power under this decrepit system. Apathy abounds among the general public. Don't they realise that their beloved children will be pensioners one day?

We need standards of fair play, decency and respect for people that must be met by Parliament before legislation becomes law.

I am 75 years old and I will not stand by and let the rot of the 21st century affect my children and grandchildren.

• Derek Hobbs-Ainley, Gleton Avenue, Hove

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