As someone who had been paid the state pension since February, I find it hard to come up with reasons to justify the triple lock in the circumstances the country finds itself in. Having spent the time since I moved up here in March 2018 existing on virtually no savings, a works pension and the generosity of those who are patrons of my blog (my total income per annum meant that I had to pay a small amount of income tax each year), I am now able to save a fairly substantial amount every month which should enable me to make the whole house habitable rather than the three quarters of it I've been living in.

it's a bugger that my works pension has been cut by about £100 a month since I've become eligible for the state pension, but, although I'm hardly living in the lap of luxury and the amount I save each month will almost certainly drop in the autumn when the next round of energy price increases kick in, I don't think I need the sort of pension increase the triple lock will bring in.

I appreciate that there will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pensioners who will need the triple lock increase come the winter, but if there were a scheme whereby people could decline it on an individual basis, I would do so this time, because I think it's wrong to give all pensioners the sort of preferential treatment that the triple lock boils down to in reality.