Let them eat pizza or better still deliver it

This Green and Surprisingly Pleasant Land : politics and society

Older people, eh, what are they like? More of them (sorry, that should probably be us) are quitting the workforce earlier, meanwhile they are festooned with benefits including inflation-proof state pensions, free rides on public transport and they can even snare cut price haircuts. It’s so unfair,

Why won’t these feckless seniors pull out their collective fingers and rejoin the manpower starved workforce? This question was addressed by Mel Stride, 61, the minister for work and pensions.

He recently visited the swish City of London headquarters of the food delivery firm Deliveroo where has was also supplied with a clutch of older but hardly elderly Deliveroo minimum pay workers who would normally not even be allowed into the building. However they had their uses as a backdrop for Mr Stride’s photo opportunity.

In return Mr Stride said nice things about Deliveroo and was given a platform to urge those heading towards their colostomy bag years to get back to work.

According to official UK figures 3.4 million people who are over 50 but under the retirement age, have become economically inactive. In addition there is an unrecorded number of people past their retirement age who are perfectly able and often willing to get back into paid employment.

Mr Stride is keen for them to find their inner pay check but rather confusingly thinks that they are put off because they find it ‘deeply unattractive to go and work for an employer that’s all about politics and all of that kind of stuff’.

I have no idea what he’s talking about but assume he is trying to conflate the war on woke with the war on work, or, in this case not working.

But maybe he is sensitive to the fact that he chose to make these remarks at the HQ of a company that is notorious for low pay and insecure employment. Indeed its recent Annual General Meeting was the scene of a demonstration by its employees highlighting these issues.

So, maybe what Mr Stride is trying to say is that workers struggling for better pay and conditions should be ignored because they are being political when what really matters is that they should be grateful for any job offering flexible working hours, regardless of its menial nature and poor pay.

He reminds me of going to an employment advisor after I finished doing my O Levels at school. It was the kind of school where very few pupils did A Levels and practically no one went to university. I was asked by the man from the ministry what job I wanted to do, to which, as a self-respecting teenager, I gave the only reply that could be expected, namely: ‘dunno’. Actually, that was a lie because I did know and wanted to be a journalist but didn’t want him to laugh if I said that.

He was there to give advice and had clearly had experience of truculent teenagers so he seized on the fact that I had a Saturday job at the now defunct cut price store Woolworths. ‘Well’, he said, ‘if you work hard enough you could become a manager at Woolworths’.

My school was a place of low expectations and we got used to the idea that low was where we should aim. Most of the pupils left without qualifications because they couldn’t see the point of staying on to do exams. This is despite the fact that many of my classmates who quit as young as 15 were extremely bright and, in another environment, would have gone on to much better things.

That was back when God was in shorts and I’m now even older than the man in a grey suit who was propelling me in the direction of a thrilling career at Woolworths.

Fast forward to 2023 and there’s Mr Stride telling older folk that aiming low is the place to aim. We are also advised to take something mysteriously called a “midlife MOT” to ensure financial comfort in retirement.

Thanks for this advice Mel. But old doesn’t mean stupid. If the government was serious about getting older people back to work they would focus on extending employment opportunities using the skills they have acquired. Doctors and teachers, for example, would not be financially punished if they continued working after reaching an age when they were entitled to a full pension. Bus drivers and lathe operators shouldn’t be written off solely on grounds of age. Indeed people with all manner of other skills should not face alleged health and safety barriers preventing them from continuing their work.

Maybe out there in the department for work and pensions they have convinced themselves that older people are only capable of taking on undemanding low paid jobs. Yet there is a vast reservoir of extremely valuable skills and experience out there in Oldie Land. The trick is to find a way of using this resource in a way that is compatible with the desires of those feckless senior citizens who want to work but also wish to wind down a bit.

That does not mean focusing on carting around pizzas for as little as £2.90 per delivery.