THIS is what those that are going on strike over the public sector pension can expect when they retire if the Government gets its way with its draconian measures.

One in four of you will be living below the official poverty level; one in three of you will be living in fuel poverty i.e. more than 10 per cent of your weekly income goes on paying for fuel, a larger parentage of your income spent on VAT than any other section of the population.

You are being asked to pay up front £35,000 to pay for care when you can no longer look after yourself and the change from RPI to CPI you will lose £32,000 over 10 years if your combined pensions are over £12, 000 per year. Just to put things into prospective, the right for a decent state-run pension is not just for those in the public sector, it is for everyone.

At the recent National Pensioners Convention Pensioners Parliament held in Blackpool, the Secretary of State for Pensions, Steve Webb, was quizzed on the £41 billion surplus in the pension pot, he said it is capital and cannot be used for paying the pension. That is rubbish, it is our money that we have paid in all our lives to pay for our retirement and if this coalition gets its way by combining income tax with national insurance, what happens to the pension surplus?

With more pensioners looking for work than ever before to make ends meet, we were once called bed blockers now we are called job blockers.

We are all in it together, some more than others. The strike is justified, not just for the public sector, but for all of us and today’s pensioners will be standing shoulder to shoulder with you.

Derek Barton, Secretary North West Regional Pensioners Association.