The One Show fans blast BBC for ‘appalling and patronising’ pensioner poverty report
THE One Show fans have slammed the BBC for an “appalling and patronising” pensioner poverty report.
The topical programme featured a segment on pensioners having to come out of retirement amid the cost of living crisis.
Hosts Alex Jones and Roman Kemp introduced a pre-recorded clip which showed four women over the age of 66 having to return to work as they can’t afford to live off their state pension.
One woman called Karen was shown working three cleaning jobs and considered taking on a fourth to make ends meet
After the short clip, Alex and Roman in the studio praised their the ladies work ethic they were bringing to the jobs.
But viewers were outraged that the segment appeared to “normalise” pensioners being forced back into work in order to survive.
One fumed: “What a patronising and one-sided view of pensioners having to work beyond retirement in the UK.
“In the rest of EU pension levels are sufficient to enable people to enjoy their retirements, not have to work until they die like in UK now.”
Another posted: “Normalising hard-strapped pensioners having to go back to work (and hard-graft and low paid work) to make ends meet risking their health is really deplorable.”
A third raged: “Please don’t try to romanticize pensioners being forced to go back out to work because this countries government is not looking after them. Absolutely f****** appalling.”
“The One Show Doing a piece on poverty forcing older people to ‘work till they drop’ then in the studio going on about how great this is! Not reading the room – this was about poverty-level pensions forcing people to work,” a fourth angry viewer tweeted.
After hearing about each of the women’s stories, Dragons’ Den stars Sara Davies and Peter Jones spoke about their commitment to work.
Alex said: “That was brilliant in many ways, wasn’t it? The work ethic that those women were bringing to their workplace, fantastic.”
Peter explained that his father still works at his company at the age of 88.
The entrepreneur said: “He still comes in, he comes in at about three or five in the afternoon, but he comes in every day.
“You’re right it’s nice to see because of all the experience that they bring, I think it’s fantastic.”