Dear Prime Minister

“Dear Prime Minister”

My name is Vic Leader and I sit on the Steering Group of T&E.  I shall shortly be 63 and have worked in several quite different sectors of the economy, for many years as a Company Secretary and senior team player, most recently as a Risk Management consultant.  I have several hobbies and interests, children and grandchildren as well as parents and siblings spread around this great country of ours. I travel a lot at home and abroad.  Can this all be true of someone as old as that?  Judging by the stereotype you would have to doubt it; but it is true.  I am far removed from ‘hanging up my boots’.

Enough of introductions, I don’t yet know who my reader is but the opportunity for that will came, soon.   You may not have got as far as section 23 of the “Government Priorities” document published on 20 May but if you did you will have noted that the Conservative and Liberal aspirations for the ‘new’ politics include taking action to make it easier for older people to work or volunteer.  Now that is a step in the right direction but still my letter to our new PM & DPM might look something like this

Dear Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg

Here at T&E we are delighted to know that you recognise that getting older does not mean becoming useless, nor that the only thing we old’uns want to do is play out our days in permanent leisure activities – not that we mind a decent share of them.

In recent years it has felt as if reaching 50 was like having a cross marked on your back.  True some parts of the economy are best suited to the young but even there a calming hand and a little experience might get better results than the mad rush to be first to whatever the latest fad might be.  Now we note that you want to make it easier for us to work or volunteer, and even to phase out the default retirement age.

That is a good start; but it is only that.  There are layers of prejudice, misconception, and even meanness to be overcome.  But we are here to help.  Indeed T&E offers its services to you as an agent for that change and a focus for reaching the people who have too easily been discarded in the near past.  Our members are just those people we think you are looking for – intelligent, professional and skilled, active, energetic, creative and above all experienced, in life as well as work.

We look forward to working with your government and to re-engaging this wasted talent with the economy.
Yours etc

Now the thing is I and my steering group colleagues have many ideas about how to bring this about but we still need you to join us, if you have not already, and we welcome your own ideas.  What experience can you bring as an individual? What unsolved issue might our members be able to tackle for you, if you are a corporate?

The more of you we hear from the greater our voice and the more we can contribute to the rebuilding of our broken economy.  So get yourself registered and let me hear your reaction to my letter.