How could they turf the old from their homes?

Who would want to grow old in this country? In the NHS, the elderly are dismissed as ‘bedblockers’ who deprive more deserving, younger citizens of precious resources.

If they’re really ill, they might be put on the Liverpool Care Pathway — or its replacement — to hasten their death by depriving them of food and water.

Even if they’re not ailing, the elderly today have to wait longer before their pensions start, at a time when their income from savings has been wiped out by low interest rates.

Now comes another appalling indignity. A major financial watchdog says they should move out of their homes to make way for younger families who want to scale the housing ladder.

Lynda Blackwell, from the Financial Conduct Authority, wants OAPS who’ve paid off their mortgage and ‘sit quite happily in a very big house’ to shove off into ‘proper housing for retired people in the right place’.

What’s that supposed to mean? Purpose-built battery farms for the elderly? It’s not only patronising and insulting, it would set generation against generation.

Why shouldn’t retirees continue to ‘sit happily’ in the home they love, and for which they have worked and saved all their lives?

A place where they’ve raised their family and to which grandchildren can come to stay?

The FCA’s move is nothing less than another insidious assault on the elderly. one which again suggests they’re a burden, that their time is over.

Yet many of these so-called ‘home blockers’ have just hit retirement.

They are in their 60s and 70s, a golden age for travelling, new hobbies, friends and quality t i me with their children and grandchildren.

how dare anyone suggest they should be shuffled off to make way for the new generation.

I CAN think of one very large family home which the eldest son is keen that his parents vacate. Eat your heart out Charles.