The Taxpayers’ Alliance has recommended that the government should cut pensioner benefits – because pensioners might be dead or suffering from memory problems by the time the next election comes around.

Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the group’s research director Alex Wild said there were two reasons why cuts should be made now.

“The first of which will sound a little bit morbid – some of the people… won’t be around to vote against you in the next election. So that’s just a practical point, and the other point is they might have forgotten by then,” he said.

“If you did it now, chances are that in 2020 someone who has had their winter fuel cut might be thinking, ‘Oh I can’t remember, was it this government or was it the last one? I’m not quite sure.'”

Sounds like the same reasoning behind the ‘conservative’ push to postpone retirement another two years – to make sure that millions of Americans never live to see their social security checks.