The politics of grievance has dominated debate in both Britain and the United States. Spud, Gazza and Zack have all built political narratives around anger, blame and the promise that someone else is responsible for people’s hardship.
But is that politics now running out of road?
Hope so, eh?
Hardship? I’ve been struck recently by what some busybodies have classed as a “comfortable retirement” – which seems to involve being a bigger spendthrift in retirement than we ever were during our working lives.
Compared to our childhood and early adult years their standard for “comfortable” is downright luxurious – and I say that without any claim to have lived in t’hole in the road.
Yes, having just Googled “comfortable retirement” it seems my income is less that half the suggested figure. Still that figure comes from the pensions industry which obviously has an interest. The state pension supplemented by a small pension from my last ten years of stable employment, my own home, some savings: I live a comfortable life.
The annual income apparently required for a comfortable retirement, which does not include rent/mortgage payments as it assumes home ownership, is £45k, so gross you’d need the state pension plus another £42k of income. Most full time workers in Britain earn less than that.
Still, as you say, these are not real numbers, they are fearmarketing from the pensions industry.
I think you meant state pension + another c£32k of income.
Nope, the comfortable living standard is £45k of net income.
If you’re not paying a mortgage (or rent), WTactualF are you spending £45K on?
prostitutes and cocaine.
There are suitable prostitutes for hire in the 55+ age range?
“prostitutes and cocaine.”
And waste the rest…?
I was going to say “my wife likes foreign holidays” but, to be honest, she pays most of the cost of those. I have to give some of mine away.
It’s always ‘travelling’ with that crowd
It also depends where you live.
And at what stage of retirement. I’m healthy enough to still play golf and get a lot out of our motorhome. At some point I expect o those to go so we will need less to live on.
“I’m healthy enough to still play golf”
Hopefully you have many years ahead of you.
https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/a-current-affair/george-oshlack-champion-golfer-turning-100-a-current-affair-20250606-p5rkpv.html
Impressive. We have quite a few 80+ YOs some use individual carts and play 18 holes and a few prefer to walk and play the 1st 11 holes which are relatively flat but don’t play the last 7 because it’s hilly with the 18th being a particularly steep climb to get to the fairway.
Isn’t ALL politics basically boiled down to that?
A mate of mine and his wife spend half the year in India (they’re not Indian, though he has done a lot of business in India over the years) in a rented house with a housekeeper. Works out about £1500 pcm.
They AirBnB their own place while they’re away and end up considerably quids in.
Watched the RHS Chelsea coverage.
How nice to live in a country so rich that millions of people and acres can be dedicated to growing pretty flowers, instead of food to survive.
Hardship – he wouldn’t recognise the concept until he’d starved to death.
Talking about anger and blame, OT but I’m delighted to see the Ginger Whinger has utterly lost his case against the Daily Mail, been completely discredited, and that expert race grifter “Baroness” Doreen Lawrence has come a mighty cropper, too. Ah, the schadenfreude is sweet.
Wouldn’t the term “rethink” imply that Spud was thinking in the first instance?