Pensioners to fight for Holyrood seats

The Pensioners Party of Scotland - which will fight on the regional lists - claims elderly people are often regarded as a nuisance and their needs are ignored.

And just as Labour adopted the red rose, the Pensioners Party has decided its symbol will be a forget-me-not.

"Everyone is quite prepared to forget us," said founder George Rodger, of Falkland in Fife. "But we are determined we won’t be forgotten.

"We are never going to be in power, but we want to influence the decision-makers . We want a society where no pensioner is subjected to enforced poverty."

As well as pensions on a par with average earnings, the party also wants free eye tests and dental services for elderly people, a local income tax to replace the council tax and the right to "die with dignity". The Pensioners Party plans to put forward candidates for the list elections in five of Scotland’s eight regions - Lothians, South of Scotland, Mid-Scotland and Fife, Central Scotland and North-East Scotland.

The party says the Executive’s scheme of free bus travel for elderly people within local areas should be extended to cover journeys by public transport across the country . And it says pensioners should have the right to die with dignity and to "choose, within the law, when and where death should take place".

Retired joiner David Motherwell, who serves on Haddington community council, will be the Pensioners Party candidate in the Lothians. "A third of the population of Scotland are pensioners, so we have a right to be heard," he said.

The manifesto claims none of the established parties has shown a genuine interest in the welfare of pensioners in the past and there is no reason to believe they will do so in the future.

It states: "Here in Scotland, at the beginning of the 21st century, the needs of the elderly are often forgotten, avoided, even ignored altogether.

"There is now a general lack of respect for older people in Scotland, particularly the very elderly, and a growing irritation with their apparent inability to cope with a fast-moving society.

"In a consumer-based society , pensioners are discounted because of a perceived lack of purchasing power or unfashionable lifestyles.

"Old people are even being accused of using up vital health services, although they may well have paid National Insurance contributions of health treatment over a lifetime.

"These perceptions lead to a lack of consideration, or worse, dark thoughts about the place of the elderly in our society. Is this really how we think and feel about our old folk?"

The Pensioners Party is the latest in a growing list of new parties with plans to fight the elections in May. Fishermen, business people and hospital campaigners are all planning to field candidates, as well as the embryonic far-right New Party.