From 1959. “There used to be trams not very quick got ya from place to place. But now there's just jams half a mile thick stay in the human race - I'm walkin'” Thank you Lionel Bart

It’s the way that worked! And yes we should talk about it. It must be the job of the Second Pensions Commission.

Those who want to get rid of the triple-lock, e.g. the Resolution Foundation, criticise it because it is “arbitrary”. You can’t use an arbitrary amount to fund the certain cost of adequate social care. This is really about cutting the State pension.

This is getting bonkers! The idea that social care could be funded by scrapping the triple-lock makes no sense. We simply don’t know what abolition would save, if anything at all, apart from some speculative figures from the OBR. We do know that a social care service will be expensive.

We already know it won’t be triggered for the 2027 increase. It now looks most unlikely that it will be triggered for the 2028 increase. And even if it were triggered for the 2029 increase, the idea that it would be removed just before an 2029 election, is for the birds.

Speculation in the FT about abolition of the triple-lock. What it doesn’t say is that the main political problem faced by arguments for abolishing the triple lock is that it doesn’t save any money over the period up to the next election.

Why go through the agony of abolition, think winter fuel allowance, when it saves no money. Even in the longer term the supposed savings are highly contingent on assumptions about price and earnings increases that are open to question.

Red, white and blue stripes. French?

I must mention The Complete Short Stories of H.G. Wells for the short stories collection.

I think that the current government is taking an interest though.

It was just like rejoining the European Union.

My children do because we never opened the packed lunch on our regular train trips to North Wales until we were past Nuneaton.

It actually became 1p with decimalisation.

It should be 3d.

Yes, you have get divorced first.