The fact is that barely four in ten 18 to 24 year olds bothered to get out of bed to vote in the referendum — which means, by my admittedly dodgy maths, that those who didn’t register a preference to stay in the EU outnumbered those who did by two to one.
Mind you, this hasn’t stopped their generation from whingeing and whining that they’ve been betrayed by their parents and grandparents.
Heavens, no! They expect us to change their nappies, feed, house, clothe and educate them — and now they say we’ve ratted on our duty to sacrifice our democratic rights to their half-baked opinions about the virtues of a European superstate....
TOM UTLEY: Forget the stroppy, whingeing young who blame us wrinklies for Brexit. Most couldn't get out of bed to vote!
By Tom Utley for the Daily Mail
8 July 2016
‘I’ve been LITERALLY RAPED by 17 million old people!’
To mark the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995, it was my job to interview MPs and Peers about their reminiscences of that glorious day in 1945. The story that moved me most has stuck in my mind ever since.
I heard it from the late Lord Merlyn-Rees, the former Labour Home Secretary — as thoroughly decent a man as I’ve met, whom I was proud to call a friend.
He told me that on VE Day, he was serving in the RAF somewhere in the Middle East or Africa (I forget which) when the wild celebrations of revellers came crackling over the wireless from faraway Piccadilly Circus.
There was no cheering among his comrades, he said. Lost in private thoughts, none of them uttered a word to break the stillness of the evening. But one pilot rose from his place by the camp fire, walked slowly over to his Spitfire parked in the desert — and gently patted its undercarriage, as if rewarding a faithful dog for a job well done.
A small group of anti capitalists spent the day on Parliament Square protesting the outcome of the EU referendum on Monday
A fortnight ago this morning, I felt a bit like that when I woke to news that I never thought I would live to hear.
The comparison is a little overblown, I grant you, since boozy Jean-Claude Juncker isn’t Adolf Hitler — and those of us who had campaigned for years to pull out of the European Union faced none of the physical dangers or privations of the war.
All I mean is that I felt no exultation on hearing of the vote to leave. Instead, my overwhelming feeling — apart from a twinge of trepidation over the unknown future opening up to us — was an immense, quiet satisfaction over the outcome.
The British people had come good, and the right side had won.
I wished that my late father, the anniversary of whose death three decades ago fell in the week of the referendum, had been alive to see this day. How thrilled he would have been at the restoration of our freedom and sovereignty, for which he had battled since Ted Heath led us into what was then known as the Common Market in 1973.
But the reaction of my old man’s grandchildren, I regret to report, was very different. Of our four sons, the two who still live at home voted Remain — and they’ve been looking at their parents ever since with reproachful eyes, as if we Brexiteers have wantonly destroyed their future and shattered any tiny chance they may have had of earthly happiness.
Far more typical of their generation, the other two couldn’t quite manage to heave themselves to the polling station before it closed at 10pm. Indeed, you will have been told that 75 per cent of Britons aged 18-24 voted to remain (though some put the figure at 64 per cent).
A small group of young people gather to protest on Parliament Square the day after the majority of the British public voted to leave the European Union
But this is simply untrue. The fact is that barely four in ten in this age group bothered to get out of bed to vote — which means, by my admittedly dodgy maths, that those who didn’t register a preference to stay in the EU outnumbered those who did by two to one.
Mind you, this hasn’t stopped their generation from whingeing and whining that they’ve been betrayed by their parents and grandparents.
Heavens, no! They expect us to change their nappies, feed, house, clothe and educate them — and now they say we’ve ratted on our duty to sacrifice our democratic rights to their half-baked opinions about the virtues of a European superstate.
This week, the hysteria of the young — in the smarter parts of London, at least — was encapsulated for me by a twenty-something woman at the table next to mine outside a Kensington pub.
‘I’ve been literally RAPED,’ she shrieked at her friend (though the actual word she used, unrepeatable in a family newspaper, began with an F). ‘I’ve been LITERALLY RAPED by 17 million old people!’
(I toyed with the idea of putting her right on the meaning of the word ‘literally’, and its distinction from ‘metaphorically’, but I judged it politic to hold my tongue.)
Her reaction is echoed in a side-splitting video on the Guardian website, pointed out to me by one of my Bremainer sons. To give him his due, he finds it as hilarious as I do, though I don’t think the Guardian realises it’s funny at all.
Under the heading ‘Family rifts over Brexit: “I can barely look at my parents”’, this features a series of distraught young people, most with Sloane Ranger accents, airing their selfie moans via expensive laptop webcams (gifts, I’ll be bound, from their hated mummies and daddies).
One sample, from a young woman fighting back the tears: ‘I’m tired, I’m worried and I’m upset. The lies and the scapegoating of the EU have finally won. And for what? A protest vote and the uncertainty of the UK’s future.’
And here’s another: ‘We are Europeans. We’re citizens of the world. We didn’t vote to leave Europe but you are snatching it away from us. Sixteen and 17-year-olds weren’t even asked. A 90-year-old has more of a say in the rest of our lives than we do.’
It’s their dumb incomprehension that amuses me. Clearly, it’s not quite true to say that they disagree with the case for Leave. More to the point, they are completely unaware that such a case exists.
The explanation, say my techno-savvy friends, is that the young are locked in an internet ‘filter bubble’, which answers their searches for information with websites that conform with material they’ve liked before. Thus, they only ever get to read or hear one side of any argument.
But for goodness’ sake, darlings, dry those eyes and pull yourselves together. It’s quite true that, for a while at least, the fall in sterling may add a few quid to the price-tag of the next generation of iPhones (though it should work wonders for British exports). It may even be — though I doubt it — that you’ll find it a little more difficult in future to up sticks and settle in St Tropez or Rome.
But think of the upside. By voting to leave, your parents and grandparents have unchained you from the deck rails of the SS Brussels, fast sinking under the weight of a stateist bureaucracy that has laid waste the lives of millions of your contemporaries across southern Europe. Who knows, one day you may even be able to afford a house.
The next time stroppy 18-year-olds or twentysomethings accuse you of betraying them, ask them this: ‘Did you vote in the referendum? Or were you too busy taking selfies, splashing around in the Glastonbury mud or scratching your bottoms in bed?’
At the same time, we have bestowed on you the most precious gift for which generations of your forefathers sacrificed their lives.
We’ve given you the right to influence your rulers through the ballot box (and shame on the tens of thousands of mostly young people who marched against democracy in London last weekend, pleading with the political elite to ignore the will of the people).
From now on, your votes at elections, if you can be bothered to cast them, should actually make a difference.
What’s more, those of us of a certain age (I’m 62) voted Leave for entirely selfless reasons. Indeed, we were specifically warned by the hysterical Chancellor that pensions would be hit if we pulled out — and I, for one, don’t expect the economy to have settled down fully by the time I qualify for mine in three years.
No, we did it for you, our young, in the same spirit as that in which we pulled your hands away from electric sockets when you were toddlers.
We don’t expect gratitude; what parent or grandparent ever gets that? But you never know, one day, as you compare Britain’s fortunes with those of our former partners, you may be moved to think quietly: ‘Thanks, mum and dad, you were right.’
But let me end with advice for my fellow oldies who voted Leave. The next time stroppy 18-year-olds or twentysomethings accuse you of betraying them, ask them this: ‘Did you vote in the referendum? Or were you too busy taking selfies, splashing around in the Glastonbury mud or scratching your bottoms in bed?’
If they didn’t quite make it to the polling station, just tell them to belt up.
Mind you, this hasn’t stopped their generation from whingeing and whining that they’ve been betrayed by their parents and grandparents.
Heavens, no! They expect us to change their nappies, feed, house, clothe and educate them — and now they say we’ve ratted on our duty to sacrifice our democratic rights to their half-baked opinions about the virtues of a European superstate....
TOM UTLEY: Forget the stroppy, whingeing young who blame us wrinklies for Brexit. Most couldn't get out of bed to vote!
By Tom Utley for the Daily Mail
8 July 2016
‘I’ve been LITERALLY RAPED by 17 million old people!’
To mark the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995, it was my job to interview MPs and Peers about their reminiscences of that glorious day in 1945. The story that moved me most has stuck in my mind ever since.
I heard it from the late Lord Merlyn-Rees, the former Labour Home Secretary — as thoroughly decent a man as I’ve met, whom I was proud to call a friend.
He told me that on VE Day, he was serving in the RAF somewhere in the Middle East or Africa (I forget which) when the wild celebrations of revellers came crackling over the wireless from faraway Piccadilly Circus.
There was no cheering among his comrades, he said. Lost in private thoughts, none of them uttered a word to break the stillness of the evening. But one pilot rose from his place by the camp fire, walked slowly over to his Spitfire parked in the desert — and gently patted its undercarriage, as if rewarding a faithful dog for a job well done.
A small group of anti capitalists spent the day on Parliament Square protesting the outcome of the EU referendum on Monday
A fortnight ago this morning, I felt a bit like that when I woke to news that I never thought I would live to hear.
The comparison is a little overblown, I grant you, since boozy Jean-Claude Juncker isn’t Adolf Hitler — and those of us who had campaigned for years to pull out of the European Union faced none of the physical dangers or privations of the war.
All I mean is that I felt no exultation on hearing of the vote to leave. Instead, my overwhelming feeling — apart from a twinge of trepidation over the unknown future opening up to us — was an immense, quiet satisfaction over the outcome.
The British people had come good, and the right side had won.
I wished that my late father, the anniversary of whose death three decades ago fell in the week of the referendum, had been alive to see this day. How thrilled he would have been at the restoration of our freedom and sovereignty, for which he had battled since Ted Heath led us into what was then known as the Common Market in 1973.
But the reaction of my old man’s grandchildren, I regret to report, was very different. Of our four sons, the two who still live at home voted Remain — and they’ve been looking at their parents ever since with reproachful eyes, as if we Brexiteers have wantonly destroyed their future and shattered any tiny chance they may have had of earthly happiness.
Far more typical of their generation, the other two couldn’t quite manage to heave themselves to the polling station before it closed at 10pm. Indeed, you will have been told that 75 per cent of Britons aged 18-24 voted to remain (though some put the figure at 64 per cent).
A small group of young people gather to protest on Parliament Square the day after the majority of the British public voted to leave the European Union
But this is simply untrue. The fact is that barely four in ten in this age group bothered to get out of bed to vote — which means, by my admittedly dodgy maths, that those who didn’t register a preference to stay in the EU outnumbered those who did by two to one.
Mind you, this hasn’t stopped their generation from whingeing and whining that they’ve been betrayed by their parents and grandparents.
Heavens, no! They expect us to change their nappies, feed, house, clothe and educate them — and now they say we’ve ratted on our duty to sacrifice our democratic rights to their half-baked opinions about the virtues of a European superstate.
This week, the hysteria of the young — in the smarter parts of London, at least — was encapsulated for me by a twenty-something woman at the table next to mine outside a Kensington pub.
‘I’ve been literally RAPED,’ she shrieked at her friend (though the actual word she used, unrepeatable in a family newspaper, began with an F). ‘I’ve been LITERALLY RAPED by 17 million old people!’
(I toyed with the idea of putting her right on the meaning of the word ‘literally’, and its distinction from ‘metaphorically’, but I judged it politic to hold my tongue.)
Her reaction is echoed in a side-splitting video on the Guardian website, pointed out to me by one of my Bremainer sons. To give him his due, he finds it as hilarious as I do, though I don’t think the Guardian realises it’s funny at all.
Under the heading ‘Family rifts over Brexit: “I can barely look at my parents”’, this features a series of distraught young people, most with Sloane Ranger accents, airing their selfie moans via expensive laptop webcams (gifts, I’ll be bound, from their hated mummies and daddies).
One sample, from a young woman fighting back the tears: ‘I’m tired, I’m worried and I’m upset. The lies and the scapegoating of the EU have finally won. And for what? A protest vote and the uncertainty of the UK’s future.’
And here’s another: ‘We are Europeans. We’re citizens of the world. We didn’t vote to leave Europe but you are snatching it away from us. Sixteen and 17-year-olds weren’t even asked. A 90-year-old has more of a say in the rest of our lives than we do.’
It’s their dumb incomprehension that amuses me. Clearly, it’s not quite true to say that they disagree with the case for Leave. More to the point, they are completely unaware that such a case exists.
The explanation, say my techno-savvy friends, is that the young are locked in an internet ‘filter bubble’, which answers their searches for information with websites that conform with material they’ve liked before. Thus, they only ever get to read or hear one side of any argument.
But for goodness’ sake, darlings, dry those eyes and pull yourselves together. It’s quite true that, for a while at least, the fall in sterling may add a few quid to the price-tag of the next generation of iPhones (though it should work wonders for British exports). It may even be — though I doubt it — that you’ll find it a little more difficult in future to up sticks and settle in St Tropez or Rome.
But think of the upside. By voting to leave, your parents and grandparents have unchained you from the deck rails of the SS Brussels, fast sinking under the weight of a stateist bureaucracy that has laid waste the lives of millions of your contemporaries across southern Europe. Who knows, one day you may even be able to afford a house.
The next time stroppy 18-year-olds or twentysomethings accuse you of betraying them, ask them this: ‘Did you vote in the referendum? Or were you too busy taking selfies, splashing around in the Glastonbury mud or scratching your bottoms in bed?’
At the same time, we have bestowed on you the most precious gift for which generations of your forefathers sacrificed their lives.
We’ve given you the right to influence your rulers through the ballot box (and shame on the tens of thousands of mostly young people who marched against democracy in London last weekend, pleading with the political elite to ignore the will of the people).
From now on, your votes at elections, if you can be bothered to cast them, should actually make a difference.
What’s more, those of us of a certain age (I’m 62) voted Leave for entirely selfless reasons. Indeed, we were specifically warned by the hysterical Chancellor that pensions would be hit if we pulled out — and I, for one, don’t expect the economy to have settled down fully by the time I qualify for mine in three years.
No, we did it for you, our young, in the same spirit as that in which we pulled your hands away from electric sockets when you were toddlers.
We don’t expect gratitude; what parent or grandparent ever gets that? But you never know, one day, as you compare Britain’s fortunes with those of our former partners, you may be moved to think quietly: ‘Thanks, mum and dad, you were right.’
But let me end with advice for my fellow oldies who voted Leave. The next time stroppy 18-year-olds or twentysomethings accuse you of betraying them, ask them this: ‘Did you vote in the referendum? Or were you too busy taking selfies, splashing around in the Glastonbury mud or scratching your bottoms in bed?’
If they didn’t quite make it to the polling station, just tell them to belt up.