According to Melvin Stride, the incumbent work and pensions secretary, the retirement age in the UK will have to be brought forward from 67 to 68 shortly after the next general election....
This affects me as my current retirement age is 67, although it's no shock as I was fully expecting to be shafted and have NEVER believed I'd be getting a state pension by 67.
To my mind this pretty much typifies the problem with government.... here's the pensions minister proselytising about something that he thinks SHOULD be done but he is NO WAY prepared to actually take responsibility for doing anything about it himself.
Rather kick the issue down the road until after the next GE so it doesn't harm the Tory vote.
He's also stated that the triple lock pension isn't sustainable, but apparently that's a decision for the Prime Minister to make, again NOT HIM, NOT YET.
So what does this guy actually do? As far as I can tell, nothing, he's just a minister of making statements but other than that keeping the current unsustainable situation going, and being paid a six figure salary for just that.
I got wondering what Mel Stride does for money besides being an MP, he's a Tory so chances are he's rich, and yup, he probably is!
He owns a large state in Venture Marketing Group - they organise jobs fairs, basically a glorified recruitment firm as far as I can tell.
He set up the company years ago and then sold it on, but retained almost 50% ownership in shares.
Presumably he did OK out of this deal as the company used to have an annual turnover of over £10 million, although its since been suffering and that's down to just over £1M, sounds like he sold at the right time!
Anyway...another Tory minister doing sweet FA for his public money other than telling us that there's not enough public money to pay for pensions!
