A taste of their own medicine
By Tony Watts - Editor - 08/08/2008
The best story in the website this week? No question. It’s the piece on an organisation which sent (very convincing) compulsory retirement notices to all MPs aged 65 and over.
Apparently several nearly took early retirement the hard way, such was the shock.
But what a neat irony: after all it was these very MPs who voted to keep ageism in the workplace alive and kicking when they passed the legislation which gave employers the right to dispense with a person’s services at 65 – without a right of appeal and without even any obligation to justify their decision.
However, the idea of giving people in positions of power a “taste of their own medicine” has such huge appeal that we should, I think, extend it.
Why not send MPs letters telling them their next month’s income has been reduced to that equating to the State Pension, as part of a Government economy drive?
Or send letters to councillors who pass controversial planning decisions, and developers trying to drive through big new schemes, informing them that their house has been selected for demolition to make way for a new road?
Equally officers who put forward these plans might like to receive notices that a refuse disposal unit is scheduled for the end of their garden … or that a drug rehab unit is planned for their leafy avenue?
Petty? Undoubtedly. Childish even. But it might give those of us left fuming at our inability to change decisions affecting our lives some sort of satisfaction. Personally, I’ve often harboured dreams of tracking down the people who chuck litter and mattresses into our hedgerows, and dumping my week’s rubbish in their garden.
On another but related tack, I’m a great believer in restorative justice: making offenders clear up the damage they’ve caused, or repay their debt to society not by sitting watching TV in a prison cell but through hard work. I’d love to see some of the people who wreck our city centres on a weekend being made to watch – sober – and then clear up the debris.
As my mother used to say to me: “It’s your mess. You clear it up.”
Your thoughts? Email me at editorial@maturetimes.co.uk.
YOU RESPOND
As a Countryside Ranger in Buckinghamshire for 32 years, we adopted an unofficial policy. Any litter found on our picnic sites or in hedgerows was sorted and if an address was found among it - they woke up the next day to find it all over the front of their property with a compliments slip from the Council. Cost effective result !
Pat Honey
Brilliant editorial and some good ideas, particularly as I seem to spend about 10 hours a month fighting ghastly development plans.
As for the EFA’s terrific campaign, I think Mature Times should write to the MP who was irate at receiving the letter, actually blaming the EFA for frightening him and giving him ‘palpitations’. We should tell him that he represents his constituents, many of whom have received real letters like that from the EFA.
These constituents have not received any sympathy from him for their stress and sleepless nights. Moreover, when MPs retire they have their perks, second homes and final salary pension schemes. Many of his constituents have no such nest eggs to fall back on. Instead of being irate at the EFA, that MP should be irate at his fellow MPs. As Mature Times reported, no one in his party (any party) objected to the introduction of the national default retirement age during the rubber stamping of the Age Regulations back in February/March 2006.http://www.maturetimes.co.uk/node/438
Joyce Glasser, London