Labour is, of course, wholly committed to gender equality. So why then is it proposing to borrow £58 billion to perpetuate a blatant form of discrimination: the gap in retirement ages between men and women?
There is, of course, a straightforward answer to this: on Friday’s Question Time special, Boris Johnson was asked if he would compensate the so called ‘Waspi’ women who feel they have been ill-treated by having their retirement age raised from 60 to 65, in line with men, and said that regretfully he didn’t have the money to do this. Overnight, Labour sniffed an opportunity: why not announce a compensation package and scoop up those Waspi votes?
The result is that on top of the extra £83 billion a year of costed (or supposedly costed) spending commitments in Labour’s manifesto it has just taken on a one-off £58 billion bill, for which it has made no provision.
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