please sign our petition for uk state pensions to be brought in line with europe

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Hi everybody, To start with, this sentence will begin my posting. "In simple terms we do not revere our elderly people in this country, we take old age for granted, period". Shockingly, 1 in 5 British pensioners live in poverty in this country from a 12 million generation, despite having paid into the system all their working lives, that's 30, 40, and 50 years for the oldest, so richer with other income, or poorer today, this generation have all paid in, in the past. We also have many thousands of untimely deaths amoung our elderly people through the winter months and other cold weather spells, none of this ever makes the TV media news. And the primary reason for the above is our low level of basic state pension, ie, £87 a week for single pensioners, and many elderly people dont get that much. Now before anybody responds with the usual cry,- " How are we going to afford increasing the state pension?, I have to explode other myths perpetuated by our politicians based on the fact that British politicians rule by fear and by ignorants, and they get away with it because we British are largely the most apathetic race in Western Europe. First of all the Government's means test system for the elderly, namely The Pensions Credit, is costing over 10 times more than the restoration of the earnings link would cost. Secondly the government Actury are sitting on a National Insurance "surplus" of £40 billions which is set to increase to £75 billions by 2012, so there is enough money to increase the state pension substantially without increasing income tax, also other EU countries spend 12 per cent of their Gross National Product on state pensions for their elderly people, while we, as the richer country, spend just 5 per cent. The only reason the UK's basic state pension is being kept low via means tested handouts, is because the Government are phasing the state pension out as the primary source of retirement in this country in favour of the private pension, so god help you unemployed or low waged youngsters in the future when you are old, there will be nothing for you. In order to at least try and pursuade this government to do something, there is a petition on the Downing Street web site for UK state pensions to be brought in line with Europe, the abolition of the council tax, and the abolition of the means test. This petition has been put up by Link-Age/Countrywide supporter, Christine Abram, and is headed, "To abolish the means testing of pensioners. To get directly to the petition please write into your server as follows,- http://www.notdeadyet.co.uk ( press enter, and scroll down to this, and click onto this,-) http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/decentpensions/ If you want to know more about my non party political pensions pressure group please contact me at -, michaelt596050@yahoo.com Suffice to say that Link-Age/Countrywide has no charitable status, and no membership fee, everything we do comes out of our own pockets. Link-Age/Countrywide means "Linking the generations" because we speak up for young people too. Thank you. Mcgill 1.