Readers' Letters: Warnings over impact of ageing population were never heeded

A reader says the problems created by an ageing population were foreseen – and should have been acted upon.

Forty years ago, I recall the work of forecasting organisations, like the Henley Centre who advised on demographic changes the country would need to accommodate in future. These included the potential impact of an ageing population on pension provision, the NHS and social care services, 40 years before becoming reality.

I became used to predictions of a staggering nature, like 80-90 per cent of the NHS clinical budget would have to be spent on people who are in the last three years of their lives. Now that’s a reality.

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No Government then, or more recently, wanted to account for such impact upon the economy, despite advanced warning. Who would dare even suggest putting many billions of pounds aside to cope with a problem that belonged to somewhere in the future, when contemporary pressures were tough enough?

The potential impact of an ageing population was forecast 40 years ago, a reader remarks (Picture: John Devlin)The potential impact of an ageing population was forecast 40 years ago, a reader remarks (Picture: John Devlin)
The potential impact of an ageing population was forecast 40 years ago, a reader remarks (Picture: John Devlin)

So, when Rachel Reeves delivers her Budget, yes reflect upon the financial impact of more recent ‘unexpected’ disasters; the 2008 banking crisis, the pandemic and Ukraine war… and remember that no government of whatever colour has ever tackled demographic issues that were only too obvious to all, and certainly not ‘unexpected’.

Gordon Watson, Edinburgh

Brown stuff

Amongst some of the hugely concerning headlines in relation to the forthcoming Budget, surely one of the most worrying is that it appears the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves has been in consultation with the erstwhile Chancellor and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

If the “leaks” prove to be correct around possible tax changes to private sector pension arrangements and the imposition of increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions, then the resulting damage can also be blamed on Gordon Brown.

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This is the same man who single-handedly sunk final salary pension schemes with his tax raid when Chancellor in 1997. This is the same man who, as Chancellor in 1999, sold over half of the nation’s gold reserves, the timing of which proved to be the “bottom” of the gold market. At today’s gold price, this has cost the nation in excess of £20 billion, a figure close to Labour’s supposed “black hole”.

The potential damage to investment markets, consumer confidence and the distinct possibility of higher interest rates from an economically illiterate Reeves/Brown Budget should be of serious concern to all.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Reparations row

Brian Wilson (Scotsman, 26 October) makes a fair point in saying that slavery reparations are not a good idea. Indeed, to me, such claims are a money-making scam.

Some people have a nuanced view of the subject. Respected historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, in one of his books, points out that around one million people in western Europe were enslaved by Islamic raiders from north Africa, 1530 to 1640. Why do we never hear about such things?

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Doomed plan

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In recent days Volodymyr Zelensky has been touting his “Victory Plan” around the Western countries and receiving a decidedly mixed response. It contains the usual aspirations. Russia must withdraw from the Donbas region and remove all forces of occupation. Ukraine should be allowed to fire Storm Shadow missiles into Russia. Ukraine must be welcomed into both Nato and the EU. President Biden will not contemplate any of it before the Presidential election. Donald Trump and JD Vance advocate a demilitarised zone, with Russia keeping Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukraine has been empowered by the concession that they were allowed aircraft and tanks and defensive missile systems, but the suggestion that the Nato defensive alliance should initiate an attack on Russia is a non-starter. The real US attitude to the plan was summed up with the $425m of aid; a far cry from the initial $60bn package of 2022. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the plan “ephemeral”.

The EU will not allow Ukraine to join as it does not meet the criteria – for example, it is not an established democracy and a fully fledged market economy. The EU will hardly rush to accept them when they have low income levels; billions would be required for both reconstruction in the war-torn country and a huge redistribution of EU funds as the enormous agricultural sector would be eligible for EU subsidies. Nato cannot accept them while they are at war.

Today Russia has nearly all of Donetsk and Luhansk and there is some speculation that even the Ukrainian incursion into Russia was a ploy to get a bargaining chip at the inevitable peace talks. . Some say the wish list, presented to the West, was actually designed to be rejected as Zelensky knows he has no choice but to negotiate. Blaming the West is a handy tool to reconcile those Ukrainians wanting peace with those demanding justice.

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Some would regard peace talks as a terrible betrayal. They will ask what the sacrifice was for, especially when the outline of a peace agreement was available two years ago – but any war ends at the negotiating table.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Harris rematch

Kamala Harris’s campaign has long been more than hinting that a win for Trump would spell the end of democracy in the USA. The claim seems to be that there is only one way to vote that will preserve their democracy.

In that case, with only one option, this isn’t looking like being much of a democratic election. Would it not be appropriate for Kamala to pledge that, if the voters back her, she will offer the Republican Party a rematch in months rather than years, provided they put up a different candidate?

John Riseley, Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Write to The Scotsman

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