A Gloucester pensioner is to stand as a Euro-MP to raise the plight of elderly people facing rising fuel costs.
Faye Elliott, 64, from Tuffley, said her heating, lighting and cooking bills accounted for a quarter of her income.
About five million homes in the UK are currently in what is classed as fuel poverty, where at least 10% of income is spent on gas and electricity.
Mrs Elliott said she hoped that getting into politics would push the government to provide more help to pensioners.
"We all assumed that having paid our dues for all of our working lives, we would be entitled to a decent pension and be able to live the rest of our lives in dignity and not in poverty," she said.
"I belong to a pensioners' forum on the internet and every pensioner there now is struggling.
"Pensioners on the forum were asking for someone to put themselves forward so I thought, OK, I'll go for it"
"They say, yes, they have a little bit of savings put by, but that has been eaten up now by rising costs. People can save for their old age and yet they're living below the poverty line.
"I do want to be the voice of the needy pensioners of this country.
"Pensioners on the forum were asking for someone to put themselves forward so I thought, OK, I'll go for it."
Her decision to stand as a Euro-MP next year comes as two leading charities take the government to court, claiming it is failing to keep its legal duty to eradicate fuel poverty.
Friends of the Earth and Help the Aged said the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 obliged the government to take measures to eradicate all fuel poverty in England by 2016 and for vulnerable groups by 2010.
They said despite this commitment, fuel poverty was still increasing.
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