Are older people today out of touch politically with younger generations?

Lemon grove , surprised at this generalisation which give credence to those young people who at 16 are very mature and preparing for University or a career. Please think also of those 100,000’s of young people who died in WW1 and WW2 before they were allowed to vote, They were allow to die for their country but denied the right to have a say in the democracy they were defending. That’s sad.

dont hold this new generation back by telling them they're too young ..too fickle ...too stupid ! Who said that?

16 is only too young to vote because YOu are looking at 16 from a very different place.If you can remember what its like to be 16 ..or 14 ..or even 13 when I first joined a political party AND CND ,maybe you'll find its not too young at all .I still support CND and a Independence for Scotland 50 years later ,and I'm not the only person who was in my year at school who was politically savvy.The Scottish referendum showed that we had the most politically aware young people in Europe it would have been madness NOT to let them vote and NO they didn't all vote for indy and some even went on to vote Tory in the GE .People will behave how they are expected to,tell a child its clumsy and it will be,tell it it 's too hard or too intricate and they wont be able to do it.Tell them that they can achieve whatever they want IF they try and put in the effort and they will always surprise the nay sayers .I grew up with a Gran who was a suffragette ,she was politically aware from an early age ...its 100 years since they won that fight...dont hold this new generation back by telling them they're too young ..too fickle ...too stupid !

James

Sorry Monica, I have lost your thread. I simply ssked a person what she thought. If you want the official age of being an older person According to Government policies on Ageiing it’s 50, ( See Elbourne report 1998 ) Though if you refer to Age UK they normally accept 55 as being a recognised period in a life cycle. The majority of listed older peoples clubs seem to promote membership from 60.

As for me as I climb towards 90, I am as old as I feel, so I hope to wake up tomorrow feeling 50 . I do hope my loving wife feels the same. Hope the same goes for you.

Kind regards

James

So old starts at pension age. Let us call that 65. The average 65 year old can expect to live another 20 years and many will live much longer, that is hardly only a few years, nor can it be described as saying that pensioners will all soon be dead.

In twenty or thirty years time Brexit will be history, like the collapse of the Soviet Union,

A little realism and a few checked facts might take the fun out of these discussions, but would still be worth doing.

I am sure they would POGS and so would ours.
Our children and grandchildren ( assuming they were old enough to vote) wouldn’t hold such entitled views I hope.
Looking back, when I was younger, and vote in GE and even the votes about ‘The Common Market’ ( hollow laugh) I never for one moment thought that anyone older had ‘no rights’ to a vote because it wasn’t ‘their future’ ! It was their right as a citizen to vote whichever way they pleased.
16 is too young to decide on anything ( if it came down to that age, in a few years 14 year olds would want the vote.)
My own family voted differently in the GE and the referendum, we all know which way we voted and have had no cross words or black looks, which is how it should be.
Before the referendum, we did all talk about it, but it hasn’t become a stumbling block, and we are are living locally and a very close family, so thank goodness for that!

Never claimed MaizieD that I did but as you are a Remainer I am surprised you don't and that you can't answer Day6 questions.

James

My post was NOT in response to yours we x'd posts.

I was making a generalised comment with no intention of being personal to any poster.

I am glad you are feeling better.

I am not surprised if the younger generation feel out of touch with the older generation or vice versa.

I worry about the reason why and to understand that you only have to read and listen to the rhetoric surrounding Brexit and the rise in politics of using the old 'divide and conquer' theory.

When the EU Referendum result is so often, spoken , heard and read in the media, aired on political programmes, by our politicians, even posted on Gransnet along the lines of 'the future only belongs to the youth', 'the older generation who voted Leave will be dead soon so they don't even matter' then why the surprise there becomes a generational divide. That's the reason why a lot of those espousing that view do it.

When a political party focuses on the youth vote it is doing so hoping they are going to vote for them, obviously. All well and good but when it is overtly using rhetoric that gives the impression the older generation are of little to no consequence because they are the future then we reap what we sow.

Why the surprise ?

If my younger family members ever told me I was not part of their future or I don't matter because I will be dead soon I would jokingly remind them my will can be changed to accommodate their view. I would hope my younger family members however would show more respect for others irrespective of their years .

Apologies for seemingly to have been ignoring your questions aimed at me. Unfortunately I have been off colour for a few days. Hope to feel more fit to be more proactive next week, late age can be a bind on occasion, but still most enjoyable with a caring family to support and demonstrate they love you.

I have been pleased to see a very wide and interesting debate around the question I put on Gransnet, even though quite a few who responded felt insulted, inferring they were actually my views and questioned my motives.

I have always encouraged my children and Grandchildren to express their own views. Their grandmother and my daughter (60+) did challenged some of their strong views, but they both also had quite a great of concern about the deceitful behaviour of much of the media a ridiculously silly patronising attitudes to those in the 16 to 17 age bracket, which were mentioned by younger family members as insulting their intelligence. A question was asked about the young family members and what careers they are following. Two of the grandchildren presently are studying for ‘A’ levels, 1 is at Manchester Uni studying Law. Another has a Commission in the RAF and she is training to become a pilot. On our elder son side his eldest daughter is studying Medicine at Nottingham and his younger one is in her final year of training to become a vet. Our youngest sons children are all below the age of 17. I believe all those who were eligible to vote did so at the referendum and I can confirm all of them voted at the GE, but from what I heard not all for the same party. Two I believe voted tactically.

Because I have been confined to bed, I have had the opportunity to listen to the incredible articulate debates in the Lords last week. What an incredible higher standard the Lords set compared with the appalling bear-pit rabble type behaviour in the Commons at PMQ, last week.

No wonder young people are critical of many of their elders and particularly MP’s, I only hope many of the UK younger generation watched the debate in the Lords and realised that a high % of older people are not tainted with the prejudices so many young people perceive.

This morning when my daughter visited me, I asked her “what age do her children believe you become old” ?
She said” she could not speak for all of them, but she believed it was mainly assumed to be in line with the state pension age”. Hope these answer so many of the comments made.

Best wishes to you all.

James.

They can't answer Day6 questions about the workings of the EU

And I doubt very much that you could, either, ninny.

Though it's all out there on the internet for anyone who is interested in more than just Leavers' mantras

Yes Lemongrove agree with you I know my reasons for voting Leave but seems some Remainers didn't have a clue just voted Remain. They can't answer Day6 questions about the workings of the EU but still want to be shackled to them and pay them billions.

I suppose the reason some of us, at least, although not happy, could be just a mite more philosophical about it, is because we can still remember life before the EU, when life went on, and people still travelled within Europe and quite a few worked there, too.

Indeed. And we have absolutely no wish to go back there.

It did become very tedious, having young people tell us that Brexit was entirely down to nasty, bigoted, racist, Daily Mail reading old fogeys.
I would counter by asking why, if it was so important to them, so many young people didn't bother to vote.

We both voted Remain, as did dds, but I quickly became sick of discussing it with them. After the result, one dd and some of her friends were almost hysterical - anyone would honestly have thought we were about to be hit by a giant meteorite that was going to wipe us all out. One of dd's friends 'couldn't' go to work that day - she was too 'distressed'. I ask you - talk about snowflakes.

I suppose the reason some of us, at least, although not happy, could be just a mite more philosophical about it, is because we can still remember life before the EU, when life went on, and people still travelled within Europe and quite a few worked there, too.

I don't know why you even bother to engage, GG2.

Not laugh a lot GG more a wry chuckle.

You seem to laugh a lot at the views of other people Lemons. Why does that not surprise me?

Maizie your post made me laugh, how can you be happy with the EU if you know nothing about how it works and what it does?!
It seems to me that Day6 is simply being honest because nobody seems to know the minutiae of that labyrinthine organisation.The EU prefers it that way.
So many Remainers on here seem to want to maintain the status quo because of their own personal vested interests
And will say anything, from cries of ‘unfair’ and ‘we only slightly lost’ to ‘awful racist people with no education’ etc.
In the words of that slightly annoying song ‘Let It Go’ !

GGMK2 - "perhaps the odd brexiteer would be able to talk more fluently about just how the EU works and what our government, along with their Parliament has achieved"

Well, we aren't getting that from Remainers, either, are we? Blinkered once again. Can those who want to Remain in the EU answer questions about it's make up? We pay to be in it remember.

Remainers are, in general, perfectly happy with the way that the EU works so no particular need for in depth detailed knowledge (though we've done a fair bit of expanding our knowledge since the ref.).

Whereas you, Day6 have voted to leave an institution the workings of which, by your own admission, you have very little knowledge though you can with huge confidence assert that it is the fount of all sorts of evils.

Which makes me very curious. For how can you possibly know all this if you know nothing about how it works? It couldn't possibly be that you are just parroting the anti-EU sound-bite propaganda put out by the various Leave campaigns, could it?

Because if you don't actually have any real knowledge of how it works how can you possibly have made a reasoned and rational judgement on which way to vote in the referendum?

so you see the Brexit referendum was just mismanaged ...much like the whole country has been under the tories

IF the referendum had been run on the same rules as the first referendum for devolution in Scotland it would have been a different outcome.In that referendum the rles were changed so that there had to be 51% of THE TOTAL ELECTORATE not the actual voters who voted yes.Consequently although yes WON ...we lost because the turnout wasn't large enough .

cottish devolution referendum, 1979
Do you want the Provisions of the Scotland Act 1978 to be put into effect?
Location Scotland
Date 1 March 1979
Results Votes %
Yes 1,230,937 51.62%
No 1,153,502 48.38%
Valid votes 2,384,439 99.87%
Invalid or blank votes 3,133 0.13%
Total votes 2,387,572 100.00%
Registered voters/turnout 3,747,112 63.72%

As you can see the turnout was only 63.72% so the yes vote lost despite having a higher number .

The referendum is not a football match. In most political situations where the score is very narrow, the winners take the views of the losers into consideration - possibly a slightly softer Brexit. Apart from anything else, Mrs May and the Torys are going to need a lot of the Remainers votes if they want to stay in power. Alienating them they way they are at present is not good politics.

I would be happy if Mrs May and her acolytes just stopped saying 'The British People voted for Brexit. No they don't, just over half of those who voted do, a quarter expressed no opinion at all. I have always accepted the referendum result. I wish those supporting Brexit would return the compliment and accept that when so many voted to stay in, this should be taken into account.

No divide between the generations in our family, just for the record. All the adults (ages 30 to 96) voted Remain.

This was NOT a football match- and if it had been- the vast and obvious cheating would have been dealt with by the Referees.

What a daft analogy