Grey voters snap up Osborne’s pensioner bonds

Downing Street was a happy place after David Cameron and Barack Obama’s joint press conference yesterday. The US President was effusive in his praise for Cameron and his seeming endorsement of Britain’s economic strategy has delighted Number 10. But, I suspect, that in terms of actually influencing how people vote, the success of pensioner bonds might be more important.

Osborne announced these pensioner bonds in the last Budget and they pay 2.8 per cent interest on a one year bond and 4 per cent on a 3 year bond. They offer the over 65s a far better deal than anything available on the high street. That 110,000 pensioners have purchased them is in the first two days they’ve been on sale is striking; the Treasury claims that this is the biggest ever opening sale of a retail financial product in Britain.

The Tories will be hoping that, in electoral terms, these pensioner bonds, tell granny, proves to be as effective as Tell Sid was.