REGARDING the recent outcry from some of the UK population regarding the change in National insurance rates for working people, I do understand that money being taken away from your earnings is not a nice thing at any time, particularly when young and trying to start a family.

I am 72 years old, during my working life of over 50 years I was never in the unfortunate position of being unemployed. Lucky?

Whilst having paid my NI and Taxes in full, which during some years between 1964 and 2014 were eye wateringly harsh.

During that time, I have had no occasion to use social services.

All I wish to do now is live out my twilight years in peace and basic comfort, however, life is life and my luck could run out.

It would seem that a certain percentage of the UK population expect that I and people in a similar position, pay in our taxes for all that time and then begrudge anything being returned from the system when/if needed.

There now seems to be insufficient funds in the pot for my generation – the government have spent it all.

Just imagine paying into an insurance policy for 50 years then, when in the unfortunate position that care is needed, the insurance company says ‘sorry, cannot pay out as we have spent all your money’.

Plus the money of those who have paid in but unfortunately did not reach old age.

That scenario pertains to what every different government over my working lifetime has done.

HMG, what have you done with my National Insurance payments?

It seems that should I need care, I am made to feel like a blood sucking scrounger who expects to be kept by the current working population – and when care is needed, be looked after by people who are paid an absolute pittance for what must be a really tough job.

Even my old age pension is now considered to be a taxed benefit.

I paid this money in over my lifetime in tax etc, so I am being taxed on money that I paid as taxes in some form or another and am now made to feel like a pariah in this – the society I have helped to build, protect and finance throughout my life.

One last thought.

Back in the 1960s Roger Daltry of the rock group The Who, in the hit song Substitute, sang the words – “hope I die before I get old”.

This year he is about 77, ask him if he feels the same way now?

Old age always seems a long way off in the wonderous years of youth, but it is a fact that most of the population get there eventually.

But never mind eh!

By then, as depicted in some films throughout my life, the solution may very well be that when humans reach a certain age they will be called to be eradicated. Problem solved!

OK, I am off now to enjoy my twilight years, lock myself away from society and bother no-one come what may, until I fall off my perch.

MIKE BEATTY Bournemouth