It seems that somewhere along the line we decided as a society to forget about the elderly. When I was a child in the 1970s, the welfare of old age pensioners was at the heart of our national debate. Public anger over the elderly living in poverty and want was politically commonplace.

I remember terrifying reports on Newsround, the children’s current affairs show, telling of the elderly dying of cold as they were too poor to turn the heating on. It upset us GenX kids - especially those, like me, who grew up in working-class homes. We could imagine the same happening to our grannies and grandads.

My own beloved grandmother, who spent her entire life in back-breaking work - even fighting fires in London during the Blitz - was forced to move in with my parents some winters as it was just too expensive to heat her flat.

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Maybe it was Brexit - with its ugly subtext of inter-generational war - but a change came over this country, and we stopped caring very much about the elderly.

Some truths first. Pensioners, no matter what some may say, aren’t all living triple-locked lives of luxury. Many are indeed comfortably off, thanks to burgeoning house prices and well-stocked retirement funds. But that’s not universal.

Around two million pensioners live in poverty across Britain. Nearly one million are classified in "deprivation". So not every "Boomer" - as some of the crueller Millennials and GenZers refer to their grandparents - is rolling in clover. Many endured harsh childhoods and hard middle-age. Now our society turns its cold, uncaring face away from them in their final years.

Today, the Labour Government is preparing to sacrifice the elderly in pursuit of some thick-headed, spiteful Thatcherite dogma. The Scottish Government shambles in Keir Starmer’s wake, mouthing easy words of concern but replicating dire policies nonetheless.

We’ve had our young destroyed, with child poverty beating youth to a pulp. We’ve had disabled people humiliated by a degrading welfare system intent on making the sick and vulnerable grovel just to keep body and soul together.

Now, it’s the elderly’s turn. Soon our politicians will eat us all - eventually no-one will be left unscathed save the super-rich and their pals in government.

There are two brutal themes here: removing the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners, many of whom won’t be able to heat their homes; and the refusal to fund the use of the new wonder-drug Lecanemab which arrests the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

We should rage at these decisions - not just because it’s wrong in principle to make the elderly suffer, but because one day we’ll also be elderly and it will be us suffering.

Keir Starmer tells us things can only get tougher, rather than better. Unpopular decisions must be taken to fix the ruin left by years of Tory misrule, indolence and venal self-interest.

This will be no comfort to old people freezing at Christmas. In winter 2017-18, before Putin’s butchery, before pandemic, before Liz Truss tanked Britain, there were nearly 46,000 excess winter deaths among people aged 65 and over. Hypothermia rose by 82% last Christmas.

The winter fuel payment will no longer be universal. Instead it will be means-tested. Around 10 million will lose the benefit. Many can, indeed, afford the loss. However, Age UK - a charity I’d trust over any politician - says two million vulnerable elderly folk who need it will go without.

I think we all accept some sacrifices must be made to get us back on track, but no society that’s decent sacrifices the poor and old. Martin Lewis, the consumer expert, suggests an alternative to the crude, callous nature of the Labour cut.

He’s put forward the idea that support should be based around council tax bands, linked to property values. Under this proposal pensioners in the least valuable homes remain eligible. Lewis should be heeded.

As we know, the SNP Government confirmed it will follow the UK Government. Scottish ministers whined they’d no choice, but they didn’t put up much of a fight really did they? If they cared, they’d have found a way.

Meanwhile, as heating benefits vanish, Ofgem - the energy regulator which may as well operate a corporate cartel - permits bills to soar this winter by 10%, bringing average annual gas and electricity costs to £1717.

Energy companies don’t need help. Last year, British Gas profits rose 10-fold to £750 million.

Yet politicians aren’t just making life unbearably hard for the elderly, they’re making sure death stays as cruel as possible too. Lecanemab, the breakthrough Alzheimer’s treatment, won’t be available on the NHS as the benefits “are too small to justify the costs”. It can however be prescribed privately at £20,000 annually.

The new wonder-drug Lecanemab, which arrests the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, won't be funded in EnglandThe new wonder-drug Lecanemab, which arrests the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, won't be funded in England (Image: Getty)

Currently, that decision - by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which has the darkly ironic acronym NICE - stands only in England. In Scotland, we await the findings of NICE’s equivalent, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), on whether the drug is deemed cost-effective.

Henry Simmons, Alzheimer Scotland chief executive, said NICE’s decision left him “devastated”. He called on the SMC not to follow its lead but “instead measure the benefits of this new treatment in terms of the enormous impact it could have” on those suffering from the disease.

I can think of no decision more cruel, more inhumane, than snatching away drugs which can slow the most feared condition on Earth today, as the profit and loss sheet doesn’t add up. There’s a special place in hell awaiting those who peddle such dead-eyed, bureaucratic soullessness.

Only the rich can now enjoy a good death. If someone I loved was suffering from Alzheimer’s and I couldn’t afford Lecanemab, I’d face prison to steal it for them, and then tell the courts I broke the law because the Government itself was committing a crime against the sick and old.

Yes, sacrifices must be made - that’s clear - but any sacrifices should come from the rich and strong, those who can shoulder the pain.

If we do not shout our anger at those who would rather featherbed billionaires than keep the old from freezing to death or dying dreadfully and unnecessarily, then we deserve all we’ll one day get in our own old age.

Neil Mackay is The Herald’s Writer at Large. He’s a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs and foreign and domestic politics.