Mike, I’ve reblogged Johnny Void’s post and commented on it at my own blog, but it’s worth repeating some of those comments here as well.

1stly, this has been coming for a long time. The Week carried a story from an American Conservative columnist in one of their papers, which called pensioners greedy for wishing to maintain their state benefits at present levels, while everyone else was forcing to take a cut in their income. Of course, it didn’t mention the extremely rich, who caused all the problems in the first place, and whose income has soared. Now pensioners across the western world are increasingly organised and vocal. Back in Blair’s time a ‘Grey Party’ was founded in the Netherlands to protect senior citizens’ benefits and their rights. As well as The Oldie, there’s a free magazine for the elderly, Mature Times. This has carried attacks on the government by pensioners’ groups for cutting pensions and welfare benefits for the elderly. Osborne knows that if he tries an all-out attack on pensions, he will suffer bitter opposition. So he’s taken the circuitous route and cut HB instead.

2ndly, this will lead to pensioners on the streets, without any doubt or question. Private Eye noted that there was a rapid increase in youth homelessness in the early 90s, when the Major government removed Housing Benefit for young adults, on the grounds that they should be living with their parents rather than buying or renting a house they couldn’t afford. The result was that at the end of the century, Blair’s government found that most homeless people were young adults.

3rd: this will undoubtedly lead to more deaths. You and the other bloggers have noted that 31,000 people died of the cold last winter. That’s clearly going to increase when this goes through.

And lastly, it’s more barbarous than the Aztecs. Seriously. All right, it was an empire built on fear and human sacrifice, but they had a system of honoured retirement for elderly citizens, both men and women. Check out the Doctor Who serial, starring the First Doctor, with the same name, when the Doctor takes chocolate in a retirement garden. That’s historically accurate. Dear God, it comes to something when the Aztecs are more humane in certain respects than the present pack occupying No. 10.