The next document is about...well, old people. It doesn't state specifically at what age you become "old" but, generally, it refers to people who've reached "retirement age," so I guess it depends on your profession. Again, not a lot I can comment on. There's no mention of how they hope to cover the pension gap if it happens during the next term - the pension gap being the point in time at which more people are claiming pensions than are paying into the pension scheme/s. Make no mistake, barring some really bad disaster such as nuclear war (maybe there's something Labour aren't telling us?!) the pension gap will happen, and it'll happen soon. Definitely, within my lifetime, in fact probably quite awhile before I retire. And yep, no mention of it. There are one or two allusions to the "work til you drop" solution though; vague mentions of how some people may want to continue working past the current retirement age, or at least working part-time, and how this (and I quote) "can make a significant difference to current and retirement income." There is also mention of "reviewing whether all retirement ages should be abolished." This suggests Labour want people to work more or less right up until they drop dead. I know for sure, all discrimination aside, doddery old dears still teaching at 80 years and older are sure gonna find it easy to control the ravening hordes of knife-wielding sugar-tripping teens.

Finally, we have a document on "people at work." Here, I have less to complain about. The minimum wage is a necessity in this day and age, in this country. However there need to be better measures to tackle employers who ignore it, or take advantage of illegal immigrants. This is yet another big issue I see absolutely no mention of in any of these documents.

OK, that's Labour's policies as published on their website so far. As for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, well, I was going to try and cover them both today too, but it's late and I'm tired and they have a lot of stuff to read too. So, tomorrow I'll be taking a look at their policies as posted on their website. The Lib Dems' site appears to be loading OK now.

First posted on my blog