Sorry, Jeremy Hunt – we older people want to work. But bosses just don’t want us to | Dorothy Byrne

The chancellor says that Britain needs us oldies back in employment, but the discrimination we face is an outrage

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, a youngster of 56, is concerned that there are about 300,000 fewer people in employment than pre-pandemic, and has urged us oldies to get back into the workplace. He declared last week that Britain needs you". However, at the same time, a survey of more than 1,000 UK managers in business and the public services found that only 42% of them were open to a large extent to hiring people aged 50 to 64.

To this I say, 64? That's young. I was 69 when I took my current job as college president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University. And, if I may say so, I think I do it very well - not despite the fact that I am old, but because of my age. I've got vast experience of managing organisations. I am older than nearly everyone I work with at Cambridge. I enjoy saying to all these awfully clever people: Speaking with the wisdom of age ..."

Dorothy Byrne is president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and the former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4