A very wise man once said, to be like the bamboo in the wind and not break but bend is strength, not weakness. Well the wind is blowing and I'm trying to bend, but deep down in my make-up there is ramrod that strives to keep me upright and I'm finding it hard to lose my rigidity. 
I am incensed, frustrated, desolate... my sense of fair play is being tested to the limit and found wanting. 
Official figures say one in four pensioners live in poverty; that is an undisputed fact.
The Government promised to put an end to pensioner poverty by 2020.
However in the mean time, this government is making some older people even poorer. Thanks to mistakes by the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), a quarter of pensioners have been left either short changed or in debt.
Why has this happened? Because the DWP have made errors in the payments made to many of the people getting pension credits, which is a means tested benefit, to top up their state pension.
Frequently the first thing the pensioner knows of the error is an official letter demanding repayment. Demands for £1000, £2000, or £3000 from people who are already short of money and may be incapable of understanding why a claim for repayment is being made... for a mistake made by the DWP. Seems a bit heartless to say the least don't you think?
According to the BBC, the Government confessed to messing up a third of all pension credits in October this year alone... that equates to £290 million worth of mistakes! That's an awful lot of cock-ups isn't it? And an awful lot of overpayments to be reclaimed.
But what happens when the boot is on the other foot? When the DWP has made a mistake and underpaid pensioners, it's a very different story.
In one case, highlighted by the BBC, an elderly lady had her pension credits reduced by £63 a week back in 2005 following a visit from The Pension Service.
Some two years later the lady was reassessed, following a telephone call from her daughter, and pension credits were reinstated; the DWP had actually got it wrong and the pensioner should have been getting the payments all along.
The DWP's mistake cost this pensioner some £6000 in payments and you'd expect these would be reimbursed wouldn't you? You'd be wrong.
In cases of underpayment, the DWP will pay back no more than 12 months of payments, regardless of how long the underpayment has been continuing. The rule doesn't seem very fair to me... what do you think?
To make matters worse the rule changed on 6 October 2008. Now the DWP will pay back no more than three months of payments to pensioners it has been mistakenly underpaying.
What the hell's going on here?
I should perhaps point out that I am not directly affected by any of this, but that doesn't make me any the less bloody cross! 
I'll climb down off my soapbox now...
