One in six pensioners lives in a millionaire household

The state pension has just risen by the highest amount in 15 years, and the Tory Party boasts that this is a result of the ‘difficult decisions’ it has taken. This is odd, because no one else is being told about dividends from such decisions. In fact, Osborne’s deficit is still massive so he can’t afford any other giveaways. As I say in my Daily Telegraph column, it’s just the latest clear sign of a kind of generational apartheid in the government’s fiscal policy: the cuts are being focused exclusively on the working age. And this is why Iain Duncan Smith resigned: not due to cuts to disability benefit (which he supported) but because he couldn’t justify writing ever-larger cheques to pensioners, while making ever-deeper cuts to welfare. He felt that he’d already cut to the bone.

Having to write winter fuel payment cheques to millionaires always annoyed IDS, and while researching the piece, I looked up the