The once inexorable rise in retiree living standards since the second world war has broken down. Can we keep the dream alive for future generations?

When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? Perhaps it is images of older people enjoying a well-deserved period of leisure and comfort in the final stretch of their lives. Cruise ships, garden centres, golf clubs and bungalows by the sea. The truth is that this image is now, in large part, the artefact of a bygone age. A long and comfortable retirement starting at 60 or 65 is beginning to look like a collective social experience whose moment has passed. The political and economic forces it relied upon appear to have run their course – and it’s time to start thinking about what comes next.

Retirement in Britain has a surprisingly short history, underpinned by dramatic improvements in older people’s quality of life over the past 50 years. Large public and private bureaucracies first started to enrol long-serving employees into pension schemes from the mid-19th century. In 1909, Britain introduced an old age pension funded by the state and targeting the poorest, who could claim it from the age of 70. But it was only after the second world war that a period of leisured old age become an ordinary expectation for most British workers.

Helen McCarthy is a historian and the author of Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood

This article was amended on 2 May 2026. An earlier version said that in 1909 Britain was the “first country to introduce an old age pension, funded by the state and targeting the poorest”. In fact, Denmark introduced a state-funded pension targeting the poorest in 1891.

GB News owner’s son, who wants Channel to be mined to stop migrants, is latest to have a go at transatlantic rightwing commentary

On a Los Angeles stage in 2011 Winston Marshall, then the banjo player for the folk rock band Mumford & Sons, could scarcely believe what was happening. Not only was he playing at the Grammys, he was playing alongside Bob Dylan, legendary composer of social justice anthems and one of his heroes.

About 15 years later, Marshall once again found himself stateside, this time on a very different stage. Appearing on Fox News in his new guise as a conservative YouTuber, Marshall advocated what he admitted was an “outlandish idea” to stop small boat crossings in the Channel.

The East West Rail project linking Oxford to Milton Keynes was finished in 2024. There’s just one hitch: no services

The rumbling noise in the night, still enough to waken the unhabituated, is what really goads some people living in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. Freight trains running through the new station since late 2024 prove this stretch of railway is operational. But the long-promised passenger services have yet to appear – and there is no sign of any arriving soon.

Welcome to East West Rail, open or not. For well over a decade, ministers have talked up a new railway linking Oxford to Cambridge via Milton Keynes to accelerate the drive for housing, jobs and growth – an arc of tech industry hailed as the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley.

The actor on struggling with body image, her U-turn on marriage and her obsession with Instagram dogs

Born in Essex, Juliet Stevenson, 69, studied at Rada and made her film debut in Drowning By Numbers. Her other film work includes Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend It Like Beckham. On stage, she has performed for the RSC and the National. She received an Olivier in 1992 for her role in Death and the Maiden and the 2019 Critics’ Circle best actress award for The Doctor. She is current touring By a Lady, a show about Jane Austen which is at the Buxton Opera House 10 May. She is married with two children and lives in London.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I talk too much.

American soldiers have been part of life in Landstuhl since 1945, giving the area a unique US-German identity

Despite Donald Trump’s frequent bluster, Nadine Firmont said the US president’s move to pull American troops out of Germany had hit her town like a bombshell.

“I have to tell you I was honestly shocked,” said Firmont, 45, who works at a high school in Landstuhl, south-west Germany, the heart of the largest American military community outside the US.

The actor has always been full of surprises – and now thanks to Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster he’s become a romantic lead. As the series returns, he talks about marriage, masculinity and meditation

Danny Dyer is dressed in white and carrying a huge bouquet of flowers when I drop in on his Guardian photoshoot. “Hello, baby,” he says to me in a voice so bad-boy East End, so fabulously filthy, that he sounds like a parody of Danny Dyer. We’ve never met before, but you wouldn’t guess.

Dyer has been in the limelight for 30 years, but never like this. As he approaches 50, he has become a middle-aged heart-throb. The week we meet, he’s on the front of Rolling Stone UK, and he can’t quite believe it. “I’m on it now, as we speak. And the cover before was Timothée Chalamet! Pretty cool! You know, I’ve had a long career and I couldn’t get on the cover of anything till now.”

Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Robert Jenrick, among others, have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro

Reform UK’s leading figures have repeatedly promoted a new pothole-fixing machine by the construction company JCB, while the party received £200,000 from the British digger maker, the Guardian can reveal.

Several Reform politicians including Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro machine.

PM says there are instances in which he would support bans but organisers say this would ‘strike at root of free speech’

Organisers of pro-Palestine marches have said Keir Starmer’s threat to ban some demonstrations opposing Israel’s actions in the Middle East will “strike at the root of free assembly and free speech” in the UK.

On Saturday morning, the prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “there are instances” in which he would support stopping some pro-Palestine protests altogether.

Tory leader says she did not sign off on video attacking Labour’s Troubles legacy proposals

Kemi Badenoch has apologised after footage from Bloody Sunday was used in social media posts criticising a bill on legacy issues in Northern Ireland.

The Conservative leader said on Saturday that she did not sign off on the use of a clip from the massacre, in which British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civil rights demonstrators in Derry, and that it was distributed by “very young people”.

German government calls redeployment of 5,000 troops ‘anticipated’ and reminder of Europe’s need to invest in its own defence

• ‘We love our Americans’: the German town rocked by Trump’s plan to withdraw US troops

Nato is seeking to “understand the details” of a US decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, a redeployment ordered by Donald Trump amid a feud with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

The German government sought to play down the severity of Trump’s move, describing it as “anticipated”, and a reminder of Europe’s need to invest in its own defence. The US withdrawal, which the Pentagon said would take place over the next six to 12 months, comes after criticism from Merz over Trump’s war with Iran and his handling of subsequent talks with Tehran.