of no return, is a hangover from their overconsumption. None of this is news to our parents though. The alarm bells have been ringing for decades, but they’re world leaders at burying their heads in the sand.
Greedy? Selfish? Mummy and Daddy? It can’t possibly be true? Here is what well-respected thinkers from across the political spectrum have to say:
‘TWENTYSOMETHINGS WILL BE LUMBERED WITH HIGHER LEVELS OF TAXATION IN THE FUTURE TO PAY FOR THE LONGER AND BETTER RETIREMENTS OF THE AGEING BABY-BOOMER GENERATION…
THAT’S NOT FAIR,’
SAYS RYAN SHORTHOUSE OF THE GUARDIAN.
‘With their children departed and the mortgage paid off, their spending power is greater than that of any other age group,’ says Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail. ‘They use it to pump up their lips and suck out their thighs, go trekking in Peru, and work out in the gym, eat organic food and irrigate their colons to cheat death and anticipate several more decades of looking after Me.’
‘They won’t be around to see the results,’ says George Monbiot in The Guardian, ‘…they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish.’
‘For too long the world has been run by…a generation that was simply born lucky,’ says Sarah Vine in The Times (who is married to 43-year-old Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Michael Gove). ‘Now the party’s over, they’re not rolling up their sleeves either. Oh no, they’re outta here, baby…It’s left to us to clear up.’
‘The boomers have poisoned the wells and ploughed salt into the fields,’ warns Bryan Appleyard in The Sunday Times. ‘In the midst of their success and greed, the boomers forgot…that society is a contract with three interested parties: the dead, the living and the unborn. Their children are paying the price of their amnesia. For the moment, they seem resigned, but, soon enough, they’ll want their world back.’
THAT TIME IS NOW
Every generation has to struggle for something that it believes in – democracy, equal rights – but ours is nothing to do with race or class. It’s going to be a fight between a debt-ridden minority of young adults and a glut of needy pensioners, who squandered the money they should have saved to support themselves and who will be supported by the working young.
Luckily, they have presented us with one big opportunity to make a change before the time bomb goes off.
CALL TO ACTION
There isn’t much that we can do to fix the car crashes that our parents made in the past; it’s a patch-up job at best. But we can prevent them from making any more in the future. The government has called a general election for 6 May this year. This is our one big opportunity to kick the Baby Boomers out of power before the future gets any worse.
The plan is very simple:
VOTE FOR CANDIDATES UNDER THE AGE OF 46 OR 65 AND OVER.
To find out who’s standing in your local area, how old they are and what they stand for, visit www.itsalltheirfault.com.
We’ve never been very good at turning up to the election box. After all, what’s the point of voting for people who lie as a matter of routine and break almost every election pledge that they make? And thanks to the expenses scandal, we know that they’ve been fiddling money out of the system for years. You’d be forgiven for thinking that politicians are all in it for themselves, and you’d be right; after all 70 per cent of MPs currently sitting in Parliament are Boomers. But that’s okay; we won’t be voting for them in any case.
There are plenty of alternatives standing in the general election. The following non-Boomer candidates could be a taste of things to come, if we get our act together and vote:
X SAFE AS HOUSES
Sarah Teather, 35, MP For Brent East
The youngest front-bencher in Parliament, Sarah was named one of the saints of the MPs’ expenses scandal. She was eligible to claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses, but chose not to. As the Shadow Housing Minister, she wants to bring the housing market back down to earth. ‘For many, the dream of owning your own home is as far away as ever…Across the country 800,000 properties lie empty…Why can’t some of these empty state-owned homes be offered cheaply to first-time buyers who are willing to put in the work to bring them up to scratch?’
X YOUTH PIONEER
Rushanara Ali, 35. Standing in Bethnal Green & Bow
Dubbed one of the most powerful Muslim women in the UK, Rushanara Ali is fighting for a seat in Parliament on the youth vote. ‘The boards of…public institutions that control billions of pounds of public money are…dominated by middle-class, middle-aged white men. It is little wonder that many people, especially the young, feel disconnected from those that hold power and make decisions that affect their lives.’ She’s pledged to bring 19- to 25-year-olds into politics. ‘The time is ripe,’ she says, ‘to help them take up positions of power.’
X VOICE OF REASON
Vince Cable, 67, MP for Twickenham
In a parallel universe, Vince Cable is Prime Minister and a new world order is engulfing the idiocracy. He frequently warned that the economy was overdependent on cheap personal debt and an overvalued pound, long before the Credit Crunch kicked off. When the banks collapsed, he pushed for them to be nationalized rather than bailed out. And when the greedy RBS board threatened to walk over their £1.5 billion bonuses, Vince called their bluff and urged them to go. And he emerged as the cleanest senior MP in the expenses scandal.
X FEE SCRAPPER
Greg Mulholland, 39, MP for Leeds North West
He campaigns to scrap student tuition fees. He fights against the sell-off and development of green belt land. He lobbies for the reinstatement of NHS dentists. And he’s marched against the war in Iraq. If there’s a reason why he’s not more famous, it’s because he’s too busy doing his job to organize any PR.
X SELF-LOATHING BOOMER
David Willetts, 54, MP for Havant
If there’s one single Boomer worth voting for, it’s Willetts who, on the basis of his speeches, could have written this book himself. ‘If our political, economic and cultural leaders do not begin to discharge their obligations to the future, the young people of