Seldon lost his appeal but in some respects he won the day. In any case he lives to fight again on the narrow issue of proportionality – see below – when he could bring evidence about the impact on him of forced retirement in his particular case.

His case will be a…

At some point I guess the lessons of sport and real life may become too far-fetched but I am not sure where that will be. Would that job interviewees could be urged on by the crowd’s cheers to up their game! (Come on Jessica, Paula and the rest! You know how we want you to have that job!)

Roberto Di Matteo, the manager of Chelsea Football club commenting on his team’s success against Barcelona in the semi final of the…

From next year people becoming 65 will not qualify for the £10,500 a year personal allowance compared with the £8,105 allowance for under-65s in 2012-13. Those currently receiving it will continue to get the allowance but it will be frozen in value.

For those on salaries of over £24,000 today these higher allowances taper off on a one pound reduction for every two pounds above…

The rubbishing which informed economists have given to “the lump of labour fallacy” is a coin with two sides. If it is true (as research appears to show) that countries promoting early retirement and early quitting of the workforce have the highest problems of ]]> Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:53:00 +0000 http://taen.org.uk/blog/view/94 Lovers of Pauline conversions will have noticed the about turn of Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, on the issue of women TV presenters (most especially, older female presenters).

Not only should the BBC not have sacked Miriam O’Reilly, the presenter of the Country File programme but, according to Thompson (now in his last years at the Beeb), there should be more older women on television.

Thompson also revealed that he hoped the defeat suffered by the BBC when O’Reilly took her age discrimination case to the employment tribunal last year would mark…

I am inspired to comment by a conference called by the European Social Fund backed Cornwall Works project, held this week in St Mellion (on a golf course in the middle of nowhere!).  I arrived on the sleeper to face the warm Atlantic breezes, a pleasant change after frozen London.

Getting back to equilibrium from the deep valley of mental health problems must be hugely challenging. Some 200 delegates listened to cameos of experience from groups…

What I actually said was that self employment was fine but not everyone’s cup of tea.

But before we go overboard about the value of this form of earning a living and its relevance for older people, a reality check is in order.

The incidence of self employment increases with age (see note) but is becoming self employed…

Various bodies, including the then Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Commission drew up ‘equal opportunities statements’ inviting employers to subscribe to them. The Equal Opportunities Commission established in 1975 did likewise in respect of gender discrimination.

No employer wanted to admit being unfair of course so many were happy to subscribe. Even so I have personal memories of arguments.  

At some point along the line, age got thrown into…

While there was a degree of inevitability about both his decision and the timing (a day before the public sector pensions strike) it remains to be seen how much it will impact on the actual retirement decisions of people.

Those with savings and good pensions may well do as they do now, and reach their own decisions on retirement…

Seemingly, the Business Secretary is also set to confirm that the government will introduce ‘protected conversations’ between an employer and a worker to discuss issues such as poor performance without this being used later in any tribunal claim.

The Indy also carries a sceptical…

Norman Tebbit’s observation in the 1980s that the unemployed should “…get on their bikes and look for work,” was regarded as likewise heartless and impracticable but I can see some merit in both proposals, notwithstanding their obvious flaws.

In fact, work related housing transfers among social housing tenants have been common for years, despite the diminishing public housing stock. My local council’s free newspaper carries several pages of offered transfers for those eligible to apply.

I…

The worm’s eye view of the individual jobseeker never quite compares with that of the high flying bird in the broadcast media or national press looking down on it all happening. For one, the grubby reality is a mind numbing, demoralising experience of the daily grind of filling in applications for jobs to which, all too often, they don’t even get the courtesy of a reply.

Accelerating the rise of state pension age in present circumstances? John McEnroe’s denunciation of the dodgy line call comes to mind: “You cannot be serious!”

I hasten to add that whilst we in TAEN had been expecting the latest change to state pension age, some will be surprised and skeptical.

But the rise in state pension age…

TAEN has been pointing to some of the points made by these writers for a number of years. For example, in 2009 we published a booklet, Age Matters in a Downturn, advocating the use of flexible policies to retain skills and knowledge among older employees, in preference to laying them off.

In both this publication and…

It is amusing to recall that Stephanie Flanders’ father was half a piano playing and singing duo in the 50s, Flanders and Swann. I remember that they stamped the boards in such places as the Hammersmith Odeon with a show called At the drop of a hat.

One of their numbers was a song called The Gas Man…