Jeremy Paxman says 'no votes for pensioners'

It was a debate, POGS. The point of participating in a debate is making a case for or against the proposition. As a participant you may not actually believe that what you are saying is right or wrong, you're just making a case.

And yes, the publicity for the debate did explicitly mention Brexit in relation to older people's vote

www.intelligencesquared.com/events/the-young-today-have-been-betrayed-by-the-older-generations/

THE YOUNG TODAY HAVE BEEN BETRAYED BY THE OLDER GENERATIONS
WEDNESDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2018, 7PM | EMMANUEL CENTRE

The baby boomers had it so good. They enjoyed free university education, waltzed into a job and onto the property ladder, securing their old age with a gold-plated pension scheme. Then they stuck a boot into the faces of the generations behind them, voting for austerity, student fees, and now Brexit. So where does this leave today’s millennials? Crippled by student debt, in an unpaid internship if they’re lucky, and with an ever diminishing prospect of buying a house. Their only consolation is the occasional smashed avocado on toast and a Generation Easyjet weekend in Bratislava.

Jerusalem Post, eh, petra?
The sort of MSM we all read.

Whoever wrote that is looking back with rose-tinted spectacles on a past that never was like that for the majority.

Well boohoo for them MaizieD !
The younger generation also had an easier ride through childhood and have champagne tastes on a shandy budget, which many fail to manage at all.
Many have the latest phones, buy endless magazines , lattes, and wouldn’t know a homemade sarnie if they were were slapped about the head with it.

in an unpaid internship if they’re lucky
they won't have to pay back their student debt if they are not paid, and only the elite few would get an unpaid internship, most likely courtesy of DP's contacts and networking.

However, according to ONS:
The employment rate (the proportion of people aged from 16 to 64 who were in work) was 75.3%, higher than for a year earlier (74.5%) and the joint highest since comparable records began in 1971.

I expect someone will say that many graduates are having to take non-graduate jobs, which brings us back to the question:
Do 50% of school leavers need to go on to university and end up with enormous debt?
Would it be a good idea to look at shortages in occupations before deciding on a career path instead of applying for a course which may result in poor job prospects?

It amazes me how people seem to resent the younger generation. We all have it better and easier now. We had it much easier than our parents, and that is usually what parents want for their children. What is it about some on GN that they constantly criticise the young? Is it jealousy? The young have different problems to those our generation faced, but that doesn't mean their lives are beds of roses.

It amazes me how people seem to resent the younger generation
What makes you say that?

Most of us have DC, perhaps including some millennials, DGC and do not hear them whingeing resentfully in the manner of that extract above.
I can only speak for my family, my wider family (which is extensive) and the children/grandchildren of friends - but all seem to be working, saving, many buying their own homes and, if life knocks them back at all, they just get up and get on with it again.

They are a brilliant lot and I've never heard any of them say that they resent the older generations as epitomised in that extract, the rest of which I will post below for some balance:

That’s the narrative of the boomer bashers – but is it a fair one? Can you really blame the older generations for seizing the opportunities of the post-war years?^^Scapegoating boomers and pensioners won’t solve the problems of the young – it will only breed more intergenerational grumblings and division. And the picture isn’t exactly rosy for many old folk either. While the young fiddle with their smartphones in coffee shops, many elderly citizens struggle with loneliness and pensioner poverty

Are the older generation a uniquely selfish bunch who have hoarded all the goodies for themselves? Or are they being unfairly blamed for tough social and economic circumstances that are affecting the old just as much as the young?

And what is it about some on GN that constantly criticise the older generation? You may have had an easy time of childhood etc but that doesn’t mean that all of us had, or for that matter that all older people are still having an easy life!
Do you think that this ‘getting down wiv da kids’ mentality
By constantly regurgitating silly articles that aim to be divisive by age group is somehow virtuous of you?

It was a poster for a debate on 7th February, which presumably prompted Paxo's article in the DM.

Good post Jalima ??

"they constantly criticise the young? Is it jealousy? The young have different problems to those our generation faced, but that doesn't mean their lives are beds of roses."

I think we can all appreciate that trisher but I think you exaggerate. Many of us are parents to 'the young' so why would we be resentful?

What I do not appreciate is the apparent CULT of youth - as though they are the only demographic that has to be heard, appreciated, catered for and fawned over, as if this generation of young people is somehow special.

The fact they all have keyboards and can wage any sort of war on anyone they like online and be 'heard' in that way makes their presence forceful, but not any more special, clever, precious or wise than generations before them.

We did our learning from books. They can copy and paste with impunity and instantly, but they have no more knowledge than the average 21 year old did, several decades ago.

They don't rule the world. Let's not make out they are owed anything. Like the rest of us they have to take the rough and smooth of life and learn from it instead of whining about it. They are known by some as 'snowflakes' for a reason maybe? They may have been raised by a generation unable to tell them 'no' or that they weren't absolutely wonderful or that the world didn't revolve around them. Finding life a struggle is what it's all about, sadly. Doors get slammed in faces, dreams die a death. Very few of us have had a smooth passage, easy conditions or charmed lives at any age. Many of us can say things have not come easily to us. Can we please accept this is the way of the world and the young are NOT a special breed.

No resentment, no jealousy, no dislike (given I have young of my own) but the young are just that - trainee adults who are allowed to wear rose tinted spectacles. When reality means they have to take them off they should not have to be consoled or feel victimised for the rest of their youth. The internet with all it's "You are special, you are wonderful, you deserve good things" messages may be holding up their development?

Life is hard. Life isn't just. That's a lesson I taught my children when everything seemed 'so unfair'. It's one worth learning early on.

Maizie d

The OP asked for comments on the Paxman comment.

Where did Paxman mention Brexit?

A re-writing of the whinging article above and every bit of it applies to many of us. Who wrote that drivel, once again firing up the cult of 'The Young"?

The baby boomers didn't always have it easy. Many had to leave education at 15 or 16 and find a job in order to help out their parents and add to the household income. Their parents had few luxuries. Many baby boomers didn't have phones or TVs as they grew up and could only bathe once a week. They lived in cold houses too. Some had outside toilets. If they wanted further qualifications they had to go to night school for years to attain them - studying after working all day.

Many baby boomers came from families where University education was a non-starter because families were poor. Some (very few) enjoyed enjoyed free university education, but they would have to spend HOURS in the library researching from books and writing up their notes on paper before writing up assignments long-hand, late into the night. Many had to work their way through University because their poorer parents could not contribute to their living costs. Many students could not afford train or coach fares home so they risked hitch-hiking, with their belongings. After qualifying they found employment, but like most graduates they had to start at the bottom of the ladder and work their way up. There were no flexible working arrangements. They paid a good proportion of their wages into a pension scheme. This was a prudent generation who believed in saving and going without. They would not buy things they could not afford. Some people didn't have bank accounts and very few would buy on hire purchase, so went without luxury goods. They live simply, even when they had mortgages, furnishing their homes with second hand goods. They lived through very high mortgage interest rates and many suffered when they rose to 15%. Money was often short and this was a generation who had to know how to budget. Many didn't have cars or holidays. They lived simply and WITHIN THEIR MEANS. Oh and this generation did all they could to help out their children too.

They save for them and provide lifts and free board and lodging. They also intend to leave all they worked very hard for to their children, the young, many of whom are likely to inherit at some point in their lives. Not only that many of the baby boomers now find themselves looking after their elderly parents as well as their grandchildren, for free, giving up years of their active retirement with very little recognition. Their retirements are spent ensuring everyone else is ok.

As for this bit - "Then they stuck a boot into the faces of the generations behind them, voting for austerity, student fees, and now Brexit." Just who wrote that? Talk about whinging victim-hood. It's pathetic!

No one stuck the boot in. We had austerity because former Labour governments borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and left the country in chaos when they were finally voted out. A labour government stuck the boot in by introducing tuition fees and as for Brexit the young as well as the old had the opportunity to vote. Anyone over the age of 18 could influence that vote, and the outcome - so NO unfairness there. Democracy may have given an outcome they didn't like, but thank goodness we live in a democracy.

There are two sides to every coin.

It was a poster for a debate on 7th February, which presumably prompted Paxo's article in the DM.

Paxman didn't write the article in the DM. It was a report on his contribution to the debate. The report was written by Alisha Rouse Showbusiness Correspondent For The Daily Mail.

So it wasn't a 'good post', lemon. It was made on a completely wrong premise...

I totally agree with every comment above that you've posted Day6. I personally recognise a good part of it!!!

jalima
Very good post. I can only speak of what i know.
My own daughter has never had to work in the 12 years she has been with her partner ( they have 2 children)
I have two step daughters. One pays half the mortgage of a house that her ex partner lives in while she pays £1600 a month rent in London. The other one has a very good job and lives with her son in a very nice 3 bed house in Kent.
And not one of them went to university
They all had it a lot easier than I did.

My children all drive fancy cars now as they earn enough to keep them on the road. They go abroad quite often and have every gadget under the sun. They have flexible working hours and lots of social outings. They all go to the gym.

They didn't come from privilege but worked hard at comprehensive school. I am now MOST DEFINITELY the poor relation, living on my occupational pension and nothing else.

I know other young people struggle. Education rather than money has been their passport to a good working life - no hand outs or silver spoons at all at home. In their teens I felt so awful that I couldn't help them out with the cost of driving lessons. Their friends parents paid for so much for their children.

If my children aren't saving for their old age or putting away some earnings into a pension scheme that is their look out I am afraid. Mind you, they know they'll inherit later on unless all me and OH have worked for all our lives has to pay for our care home fees in the years to come. We are still penny pinching. Lots of us are asset rich but cash poor I suspect.

Day6 your post reminded me of that Monty Python sketch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdlkunflRs
This whole thing about how hard we had it is irrelevant. And yes we aren't all living on huge pensions, but we are comparitvely well off. I still don't understand why people must go on about the difficulties they encountered in life And no matter what you went through why wouldn't you want better things for your children and grandchildren?
Jalima1108 read some of the comments about young people -like lemongrove's and the language used is so dismissive and critical. I would have thought it is a cause to celebrate that they are doing things we never could. And if you want to look at their difficulties getting on to the property ladder and the increasing age of first time buyers
www.thesun.co.uk/money/5424182/first-time-buyers-now-need-a-50k-deposit-for-a-mortgage-and-youll-have-to-wait-until-youre-even-older-to-get-one/

Thank you for putting on the additional information about CDU Jen. Many people are no doubt reading these posts even when they aren't contributing. It's nice to see the accurate information.

Totally agree with your posts Day6 well said.

Completely agree ,with your excellent post Day6, you've summed it up precisely.

All proposals made by the commission are accepted by the EU parliament thus the unelected commission makes the laws and you cannot vote to get rid of them. Also poll after poll in Italy shows that the Italian people want to vote on their future but no political party will let them have one.

Gracesgran
its nice to see the accurate information
That statement is obviously directed at me as I'm the one who posted on the SPD being knocked into 3rd place by the AfD.
I never said that Merkel was loosing power, although she obviously is, but that a far right party is gaining a lot more power.
It's all irrelevant really as Merkel has seen the writing on the wall and has chosen her successor. I don't think it will make much difference, though, because it's the CDU policies that a lot of German people don't want.