The government is facing calls from the banking sector to claw back £126m in overpayments made to public-sector pensioners since 1978. Although it is to amend future payments, the government has said it had no plans to reclaim money already paid out - estimated to average £1300 per pensioner.
In a joint letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the heads of Britain's leading financial industries said that the money would be much better spent on them instead.
"What are these former pen-pushing civil servants, lefty teachers and time-serving grunts spending this misbegotten cash on?" they asked. "Werther's Originals, subscriptions to Reader's Digest and People's Friend, mountains of cat food and bloody scratchcards, in all probability. What the hell is the good of that? It is only thanks to our sheer brilliance and unstinting hard work that Britain is the country it is today - this money should be going into our pockets, not somebody else's."
Low-paid workers who have been pushed deeper into poverty by the government's relentless pursuit of tax-credit overpayments in the last few years also expressed their outrage that the government was allowing the pensioners to get off scot-free and keep the money.
"Well, perhaps if you'd voted Labour as regularly and uncritically as your elderly relatives, we might give a shit," said a Treasury spokesman.
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