“Those who respect the elderly pave their own road towards success”.
African proverb
I am classified as a “baby boomer” and I do not like it!
I was born in 1948 as part of the post World War II surge in births. This surge begun as the war ended and went on until the mid-1960s. The working age population had been hollowed out by two world wars in the first part of the 20th century. The Battle of Normandy in 1944 claimed the lives of 73,000 allied soldiers alone. The Blitz claimed nearly 500 lives just in the London Borough of Chelsea. Multiply this out over 6 years across Europe and Asia and it becomes obvious that the working age population simply was not sufficient for the post-1945 rebuilding job. Deaths of citizens and service personnel between 1914 and 1918 and again between 1939 and 1945 runs into a dizzying many millions.
The England I was born into very much carried the scars of WWII. Bombs sites, rationing, shortages were part of everyday life. However, the post war economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s created opportunities for us baby boomers which our parents could only dream of.
First came a housing boom with new towns and estates to replace homes lost during the bombing. The building work created jobs as did the wider post-war recovery programme. The economy boomed through the 1950s and into the 1960s. This led Conservative Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, to state “you have never had it so good”. He was right.
Aspects of life which haunted our parents’ lives in the 1920s and 30s began to disappear. The establishment of the National Health Service and the wider Welfare State by the reforming Labour government of 1945-51 took away many of the fears that obsessed our parents. Healthcare became free at the point of delivery. We could get our eyesight and teeth fixed without checking the purse or wallet first. Unemployment was no longer the route to poverty. If you became ill and could not go to work the state would support you until you were fit to return.
Diseases that haunted my parents lives and indeed my early years slowly but surely disappeared as medical science advanced. Smallpox, tuberculous, polio, whooping cough, measles, rubella, mumps, diphtheria began to be discarded to the history books.
If you left school in the 1950s or 1960s jobs were plentiful – a benefit of the booming economy. Children became better educated as the school leaving age was increased. Opportunities for further education expanded. The most significant of these was the opportunity to attend university. Baby boomers began to attend them – many being the first to do so in their families. It was also free in an age long before tuition fees.
The booming economy meant better and more secure jobs with improved wages. Baby boomers could afford to own their homes – something few of our parents had done. Car ownership became common and High Streets were occupied with stores selling a comfortable life with all modern conveniences.
I am reminded that my father, born in 1911, left school at 14, worked for 60 years and never owned his own home or a car.
Baby boomers were the generation of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Woodstock and the Swinging Sixties. The world of 1970 looked very different and more prosperous compared to 1945. We were also the first generation of the century not to have to march off to war.
You would think that baby boomers would be grateful for all they had compared to their parents. Free, accessible healthcare, home ownership, access to university, secure and well paid jobs were now a given. Are baby boomers grateful to the Labour government of the early post war years for laying the foundations for all this? Were they grateful to the following Conservative government for focusing on growing the economy? Were they grateful for the boom in most aspects of life that did not begin to slow until the war in the Middle East in the mid-1970s?
The answer is NO! If we look at the polls and listen to vox pop street interviews with older people, the evidence is that baby boomers have simply banked the benefits of the post-war years, taken them for granted and developed a sense of entitlement. They promote the notion that those behind them do not deserve the same benefits because they do not work hard enough.
The “swinging sixties” seemed to be an age of openness, inclusivity and equality where everything seemed possible. Reform dominated the Parliamentary agenda – women’s reproductive rights, equal pay, human rights, lowering of voting age, decriminalisation of homosexuality, abolition of capital punishment, divorce law changes etc were all popular reforms. All this now appears to have been rejected by those who benefited and promoted the changes.
I have lost count of the vox pop interviews where older folks tell us they have worked all their lives, paid their taxes which gives them an entitlement to… basically anything they want.
They also think young people are lazy, at least compared to them at a similar age. It just all comes to them too easily.
Older people have also created an image of the past which is false – something a bit like a combination of Postman Pat’s world and Ambridge.... but an Ambridge free of immigrants, people of colour, gay people, single mothers.
Brexit was mostly driven by baby boomers who voted for it in overwhelming numbers. They were attracted by the notion of a “new” start. They believed the country’s challenges, as they saw them, were caused by immigrants. NHS queues and queues for housing and school places were caused by an immigrant being in the place one before you. They are fans of “charity beginning at home” and, therefore, against international development and foreign aid.
Younger voters well understood the benefits of freedom of movement and rights to work, travel and live without hinderance in any EU member country. Baby boomers had little interest in protecting these rights for their children and grandchildren.
Now, given my age, I know many a baby boomer and have often heard these comments. I do not say there is not a more liberal wing, but from my experience they are in the minority.
The polls show us a big and growing divide between younger voters and baby boomers. Boomers have overwhelming voted Conservative for many years. Younger people tend to vote Labour. Tories are so unpopular amongst the youngest voting groups that they lie third in popularity behind Labour and the Greens. Until very recently Tories enjoyed a massive lead amongst older voters, and it is only recently Labour has been able to find a slim lead of 7% - small compared to its lead amongst other age groups. According to the latest YouGov poll the only age group the Conservatives still hold a lead is the over-70s. However, over recent years the Tory’s lead amongst the elderly has been more than enough to deliver Brexit and election victories.
If we come forward to the current General Election campaign it is not surprising that all Sunak’s offerings have been to older voters. His core voter strategy requires him to nail down baby boomers first.
Now you might think the National Service proposal would not be of interest to older voters, but aimed at those who would have to do it. None of it! Prior to the announcement, a YouGov poll from last September showed the only section of the community who were in favour were…wait for it… baby boomers. Many an older person believes a stretch of National Service would place some discipline amongst a section of the community they feel has a cushy life. It goes without saying that most baby boomers never did National Service before it was abolished in the 1960s.
The so-called “Triple Lock plus” is clearly a baby boomer bribe. It challenges the notion of intergenerational fairness. If implemented it would create a situation whereby a person in work would pay more tax than a retired person earning exactly the same.
Unsurprisingly, Sunak’s attack on what he calls Mickey Mouse university degrees is also primarily aimed at boomer voters. This is a group who think too many go to university and that it is an easy ride. If an apprenticeship was good enough for a boomer, it is good enough for today’s 18-year-olds.
Baby boomers have done well, relatively speaking, over the last 14 years. Quite rightly many have been pulled out of poverty because of the triple lock and other benefits. Sadly, this has been achieved by plunging more children into poverty. Cynics would say the elderly vote, but children in poverty cannot.
The only group that Sunak currently enjoys a poll lead is the over 70s. At the 2019 General Election the Tories enjoyed a lead amongst every age group over 40. Amongst over 60s they enjoyed a 35% lead and amongst over 70s a lead of 53% lead over Labour.
So have real-life experiences moved the previously well entrenched views of boomers? Has the cost-of-living crisis, NHS queues, the cost-of-living crisis, failing public transport and the non-delivery of Brexit benefits moved the values and priorities of boomers? Have they gone a little soft on immigration and now hold a more nuanced view? Has the damage they have seen done to their children and grandchildren over the last 14 years shifted their world view? Sunak hopes not as he offers them gifts aimed at isolating boomers from the rest of population for electoral purposes.
I do not identify with the racist, xenophobic, anti-youth views held by many boomers which the Tories have been exploiting for many years. I still believe in the open, welcoming, inclusive society I thought we were building in the 1960s. I do not believe we are superior to our European neighbours but instead should be working in partnership with them on the basis we are all equal.
Have boomers moved their position based on real-life experience? Only 4th July will show. In the meantime, I will stick with my long-held values and principles forged in the 1960s and continue challenging my fellow boomers even if, within this group, I remain heavily outnumbered.
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