There is a gulf in generational understanding over the state pension

The UK state pension is among the lowest in the developed world, writes Mary Dejevsky

Although some seem to believe that pensions are tax-free, they are not (Getty)

The generation warriors are back, riding their high horses into battle against – guess what? An inflation-linked rise in the state pension. After a year in abeyance, Downing Street and the Treasury have confirmed that the so-called “triple lock” will return, giving the UK’s over-66s (otherwise known as cosseted boomers) a 10 per cent rise in their state pension from next April.

Within minutes, the complaints were raining in from all over the political shop. The left charged that the announcement was a government ploy to win (pensioners’) votes in the week of two potentially tricky by-elections. How could ministers warn “hard-working people” not to make pay demands that would inevitably stoke inflation, when pensioners were going to be fully compensated?

Particularly scathing, however, were commentators from the right. A certain Sam Ashworth-Hayes accused “British politicians” – he clearly could not stomach the reality that they were in fact Conservative politicians – “of once again turning round to mug the young to pay the old”. For The Spectator, Kate Andrews claimed that even as the “the working population’s salary rises fall behind the pace of inflation, pensioners will storm ahead with... a huge boost to their purchasing power in this high-price economy.”