National Pensioners Convention
Pensioners Parliament Blackpool 2008

Report by Les Cooper of Cannock Seniors

First day

Another year on and here we were again letting the public in Blackpool, England know that our campaign for fairness is still in full flow. Of 2,000+ delegates a large majority assembled at the North Pier on Tuesday 3 June and marched to the Winter Gardens. Placards were in abundance and effectively transmitted the message that government's stance on Means Tested Pensions, Council Tax, Post Office closures, Health Care and other issues is way out of step with our rational requirements for a fair deal. In common with previous years, traffic was halted on the promenade for an appreciable amount of time while the procession crossed. Just a pity that 528 politicians (646 - 118 who have signed EDM 658) were not sat in their cars - the time span could easily have been extended to make them sweat.

In the conference centre a variety of speakers re-iterated a familiar message that inequality throughout UK is rife, particularly where pensioners are involved, and government's obstinate/obstructive stance over issues requiring positive and transparent measures is deplorable. Labour MP Kate Hoey, a staunch pensioners' campaigner, was the final speaker and she made one very relevant observation about EDM 658
(detail here http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=34810&SESSION=891).
This motion, created by her, calls for MP's to support our stance for a fairer deal and has currently attracted 118 signatures. She said that more MP's need to be persuaded by whatever means to add their names, and demonstrate that they are ready to push Ministers into a more positive mode with regard to raising the State Pension level and scrap Means Testing.

Format for the first day this year did not include questions/points of view from the floor and that was disappointing.

Second day

All workshops were about different aspects of Health Care. Pat and myself preferred to concentrate on what for me is one of the event's great opportunities - talking with individual/small groups of delegates. As we sat at a cafe table in the Winter Gardens thoroughfare for approximately 2 hours, people from Huddersfield, Peterborough, Scotland, Walsall, Colchester and Unison amongst others joined us at different times. Handed out cards with my contact detail to everyone and mainly discussed State Pension, Means Testing and Council Tax. Took the opportunity to make my point about the Missing Link (click here for more information - http://www.cannockseniors.com/page.php?pid=4) in our campaign and found listeners appeared to be receptive to the idea. Points made by others included:

• one by a Unison representative who thinks we need to attract more younger activists
• a lady from Walsall Branch who, as a relatively new member, is enthusiastically promoting a petition supporting our campaign, that is aiming for 5 million signatures
• others who are looking for ideas to make more pensioners understand that they are not getting a fair deal.

Third day

Four workshops covered Age Discrimination, Concessionary Travel, Council Tax and Post Offices. We attended the latter and I asked the speaker to inform those present about the European Union role with closures. Also said that Pat McFadden, MP overseeing the closure programme, should have been on the platform, and expressed disgust at Mr Crozier's reported latest pay package of £3 million, suggesting that he bathes in shark-infested waters where warning signs have been removed. Ron Dorman from West Midlands supported my point about Europe with some enlightening factual detail.

Concluding stages of the 3-day event included reports from Regional Parliaments where the main theme was the number of speakers that attended each event. As I have already indicated in a message to NPC London, there is a need to generate positive campaigning ideas to use the abundance of information already available relevant to our issues. With a General Election less than 2 years away, time is ripe to pile pressure on MP's, particularly those on government backbenches, and change them from Whip Fodder to voices for constituents with genuine issues that require a fairer deal.

June 2008