UK politics is in thrall to my postwar cohort. That’s to the country’s detriment
Bad news arrives from the latest census. My generation has finally overtaken the young, with more over-65s than under-15s in England and Wales for the first time in history. We, the postwar demographic bulge, now dominate the financial and political landscape, and not in a good way. A country growing old that favours its ancients above its young for crude political gain threatens to be backward-looking, unenterprising and afraid of shocks of the new.
We sang that we hoped we’d die before we got old, but instead we live longer than ever. That’s a good thing – longevity is a sign of progress. It faltered in the last decade and fell back among the poorest women, as a direct result of poverty-inducing austerity that collapsed public health, as well as NHS spending per capita.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
