THIS

week, I celebrated my 60th birthday. Now, I am entitled to free bus travel and big discounts on rail journeys. Like others of a similar age, I have paid large amounts of tax over the years and therefore I feel these concessions are my due. But I can’t help wondering about the social justice of such generous entitlements. At the other end of the age scale, the young struggle to find jobs and are often poorly paid. Why should they have to subsidise well-paid and financially secure old men such as me?