Today is my Father's ninety third birthday.
He has been married to his second wife for almost as long as he was married to my mother, who died when she was sixty three.
As I have passed the sixty three mark by a good margin myself I am wondering if I might have inherited his genes.
But it is not only genes.
When he married his second wife he moved to live with her in Australia.
So, alongside his genes, he has enjoyed warm weather, plenty of sunshine and according to his letters in the early days of his time in Australia, plenty of activity including sailing, motorcycling and volunteering in various community projects.
Ageing will increasingly become a matter of public debate and concern.
The welfare budget simply cannot afford to bear the weight of an ageing population. Care costs will increasingly rob the next generation of any possibility of inherited wealth being passed down through the generations.
The welfare system, as introduced by Beveridge, anticipated that the working generation would pay the relatively short term costs of benefits and pensions.
However as industrial production has collapsed, jobs have been exported and a high proportion of the working population themselves either in low paid employment or claiming income support and as the average life expectancy rises, so it becomes the case that old age is a luxury society cannot afford.
So what must be done?
Politically the answers are increasingly unclear.
Labour supporters are increasingly unsympathetic to those on benefits, but does this include the largest group of claimants, the retired themselves?
The Conservative Party, in time honoured tradition, make a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, but will the undeserving increasingly include those who have no occupational or private pension, alongside the state pension?
The Liberals want a low cost but acceptable level of pension?
Only UKIP seem to have the answer: A Substantial Citizen's Pension, which means?
It is becoming increasingly clear that Welfare needs to be radically reviewed and re-invented.
Beveridge envisaged an economic system of full employment, living wages and short retirements. His welfare system was designed for that reality.
But reality has changed.
The original welfare system was the product of cross party deliberation, so it would seem that one step is to abandon the confrontational approach to policy formulation and recognise that a new and radical system of welfare is needed.
Alongside this the retirement age needs to be reviewed upwards.
But of course neither of these responses will work unless we address the critical issue of where and how wealth is produced and how it can be shared equitably in the UK.
Which means that the welfare review is only part of the answer, we must also examine how taxation can be modernised to ensure that the welfare budget can be funded into the future.
The current con-dem review is deeply unfair and unjust, it is critical of the poorest and judgemental into the bargain, but the debate needs to be had if we are to respond to the challenges posed by our older citizens living longer.
Unless of course we banish all those over sixty five to a sybaritic life of unlimited sunshine, unlimited golf, long lunches and siesta's on the Costa's or export the elderly to the Southern Hemisphere like the convicts that preceded them.
He has been married to his second wife for almost as long as he was married to my mother, who died when she was sixty three.
As I have passed the sixty three mark by a good margin myself I am wondering if I might have inherited his genes.
But it is not only genes.
When he married his second wife he moved to live with her in Australia.
So, alongside his genes, he has enjoyed warm weather, plenty of sunshine and according to his letters in the early days of his time in Australia, plenty of activity including sailing, motorcycling and volunteering in various community projects.
Ageing will increasingly become a matter of public debate and concern.
The welfare budget simply cannot afford to bear the weight of an ageing population. Care costs will increasingly rob the next generation of any possibility of inherited wealth being passed down through the generations.
The welfare system, as introduced by Beveridge, anticipated that the working generation would pay the relatively short term costs of benefits and pensions.
However as industrial production has collapsed, jobs have been exported and a high proportion of the working population themselves either in low paid employment or claiming income support and as the average life expectancy rises, so it becomes the case that old age is a luxury society cannot afford.
So what must be done?
Politically the answers are increasingly unclear.
Labour supporters are increasingly unsympathetic to those on benefits, but does this include the largest group of claimants, the retired themselves?
The Conservative Party, in time honoured tradition, make a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, but will the undeserving increasingly include those who have no occupational or private pension, alongside the state pension?
The Liberals want a low cost but acceptable level of pension?
Only UKIP seem to have the answer: A Substantial Citizen's Pension, which means?
It is becoming increasingly clear that Welfare needs to be radically reviewed and re-invented.
Beveridge envisaged an economic system of full employment, living wages and short retirements. His welfare system was designed for that reality.
But reality has changed.
The original welfare system was the product of cross party deliberation, so it would seem that one step is to abandon the confrontational approach to policy formulation and recognise that a new and radical system of welfare is needed.
Alongside this the retirement age needs to be reviewed upwards.
But of course neither of these responses will work unless we address the critical issue of where and how wealth is produced and how it can be shared equitably in the UK.
Which means that the welfare review is only part of the answer, we must also examine how taxation can be modernised to ensure that the welfare budget can be funded into the future.
The current con-dem review is deeply unfair and unjust, it is critical of the poorest and judgemental into the bargain, but the debate needs to be had if we are to respond to the challenges posed by our older citizens living longer.
Unless of course we banish all those over sixty five to a sybaritic life of unlimited sunshine, unlimited golf, long lunches and siesta's on the Costa's or export the elderly to the Southern Hemisphere like the convicts that preceded them.
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