Only one today, with Parliament not in session, and all eyes turning to tomorrow’s march…
Cable at People’s Vote march: Brexit is dividing generations
Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable will be speaking at the People’s Vote march in London tomorrow afternoon.
Vince is expected to say:
Tragically, Brexit divides one generation from another.
A substantial majority of my generation voted to leave.
A substantial majority of the young voted to remain.
Your generation [the young] is being betrayed by mine. By those who look to the past, who see Britain as a museum.
As a bonus today, here’s a link to something which has come to me as a bolt out of a clear blue sky. And, given that I was, prior to the Brexit referendum, the Party’s European Returning Officer for London, that might give an idea as to my level of surprise.
Liberal Democrats to begin process of selecting MEP candidates for European elections
I trust that the State Candidates Committees are aware of this…
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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31 Comments
Tragically, Brexit divides one generation from another……….A substantial majority of my generation voted to leave………A substantial majority of the young voted to remain…….
Your generation [the young] is being betrayed by mine. By those who look to the past, who see Britain as a museum…………..
Such remarks will do nothing to bridge the divide that his first sentence identifies.
I can only surmise that Vince is trying to impress the younger generation with his comments; sadly,Vince has ‘form’ in such an approach.
I agree with expats.
I am copying most of these Press Releases on to my web site for local use. I will not use this one in this Brexit supporting area for the reasons you state. We desperately need a different approach from our leadership.
I am appalled by Dr Cable’s comments, which can only ferment division between generations.
What on earth was he thinking?
Agreed. This is really the wrong approach, and will do nothing but harden the divisions.
I’m not sure he was thinking Jayne.
Let’s hope Vince remembers to turn up this time!
Whether or not it’s the right thing to say, it’s true.
Lord Ashcroft’s very large poll found: “The older the voters, the more likely they were to have voted to leave the EU. Nearly three quarters (73%) of 18 to 24 year-olds voted to remain, falling to under two thirds (62%) among 25-34s. A majority of those aged over 45 voted to leave, rising to 60% of those aged 65 or over.”
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
I agree with Jayne Mansfield in being appalled at Vince Cable’s comments, and also agree with those who point out that Vince’s remarks seem calculated to worsen the conflict between generations.
Jayne asks what Vince can have been thinking. David Raw suggests that he was not thinking at all, but I would disagree.
It’s fairly obvious that he was *not* thinking about how to get the second referendum that he claims to be campaigning for. It’s even more obvious that he is not interested in persuading Leave voters to change their minds – I’m sure he is well aware that if you wish to change someone’s mind you will not succeed by insulting them.
It seems fairly obvious that he is not particularly interested in stopping Brexit, or at any rate that this is not his priority.
It is fairly clear that he knows there will almost certainly not be a second referendum, and that he does not particularly want one. It is fairly clear that he knows quite well that Brexit will almost certainly happen.
So what is he thinking?
It seems clear that his real priority is to get support for his “movement of moderates”. He thinks the way to do so is to appeal to Remainers – especially young Remainers – by insulting older people who voted Leave. And by cynically raising false hopes that he can somehow stop Brexit.
As one who is old enough to have voted and campaigned in the 1975 referendum, I applaud Vince Cable’s stance.
In very many ways, younger people have been seriously short changed. Career, housing and personal development opportunities that were open to my generation have been removed. To tackle inter generational harm and unfairness, it is necessary to acknowledge what has taken place and has been a worsening trend for many years.
@Martin 20th Oct ’18 – 9:31am
“In very many ways, younger people have been seriously short changed. Career, housing and personal development opportunities that were open to my generation have been removed. To tackle inter generational harm and unfairness, it is necessary to acknowledge what has taken place and has been a worsening trend for many years.”
Seconded – as another old-timer who had those opportunities.
The problem with this sort of rhetoric coming from Sir Vince & the Lib Dems is that it alienates voters and brands the party as illiberal & undemocratic. Being ignorant of the facts and unwilling to participate in reasoned debate seems to apply more to the Lib Dem speech writers than to the leave voting electorate.
@ Catherine Jane Crosland. I have been wondering what happened to the respected Dr Cable that campaigned in the 2010 elections. Your excellent analysis is better than mine (that he’s been abducted by aliens).
@ Martin. I too voted for remain in the 1975 referendum and worry about the sort of society my 10- month old great nephew will grow up in. However, the problems faced by young people today, lack of affordable housing, student debt etc have happened while we were members of the EU. Just as it would be ridiculous to blame the EU, it is ridiculous to blame individual baby boomers for forces well out of their control. If only we had a British Political Party with radical ideas about reforming our democratic institutions….
@Sheila Thomas
By voting to leave it is clear the older generation have condemned the younger generation to a less prosperous future. They enjoy their homes – owned or social rented – while the younger generation are forced to rent at exorbitant cost in the private sector. Many older people now have generous final salary pensions denied to new starters. And so the list goes on.
I want a better future for all – old and young and believe that is best served by remaining.
I too wonder why leading Lib Dem politicians have to continually blame we older voters for for the result of the referendum, there maybe some truth in this statement but my wife and I are getting a little fed up with it and it certainly does not build bridges between the generations. I speak as a father and grandfather who only wants the best for them!! Please Vince stop using this angle in your arguments against Brexit!!
@ Martin
“In very many ways, younger people have been seriously short changed. Career, housing and personal development opportunities that were open to my generation have been removed. To tackle inter generational harm and unfairness, it is necessary to acknowledge what has taken place and has been a worsening trend for many years.”
What rot, the conspicuous consumption of the current generations is the cause of their inability to buy houses, together with their demands of it always being on their terms, together with the effective unskilled and semi skilled status of hundreds of thousands of ‘ educated’ gratduates conned by the system into trapping themselves into a cycle of debt.
Any single person with a few grand in savings, and a salary of around £20k, can get a mortgage for around £100k. Around the country there are tens of thousands of houses for sale for less than £100k, granted they may be terraces or ex social housing, and not in London or the more fashionable areas of our big cities, and perhaps not in keeping with the status many of the younger generations have of themselves, but they are there, and they are affordable, and our generations started out in them, not in a brand new house in a up and coming area.
I was in a pub last night having a meal with my wife, our usual style, main course and a couple of drinks, bill around £35. On the next table were a mid 20’s couple loudly discussing their need to get their own place as they tucked into a starter with drinks, and before their main course arrived, the male ordered a bottle of Cava type wine, probable bill £100. Add that the latest Iphone, £200 night outs, numerous stag and hens do’s to foreign parts in any given year, £500 Prague for a couple of nights, £1000 to Dubai for a few nights.
You may have had an easy time,, but the vast majority of our generations did not, and we only managed to get our home by sacrificing everythings else for years, something the current generations just refuse to do, and of course we didn’t have parents and grandparents doling our money like sweeties, or at least people from my background didn’t. No inheritance, what you got you earned.
@Michael 1 “I want a better future for all – old and young and believe that is best served by remaining.”
The many important social, economic and political problems highlighted here all arose while we were members of the EU so offering Remain as a panacea is not enough in and of itself, and stating that Brexit will make things even worse does not seem to resonate with those who already feel hard done by. Worst of all, these arguments are seriously undermined by being made by the same politicians on whose watch these things went wrong.
I wish I had a solution for this conundrum!
Martin 20th Oct ’18 – 9:31am….As one who is old enough to have voted and campaigned in the 1975 referendum, I applaud Vince Cable’s stance………In very many ways, younger people have been seriously short changed. Career, housing and personal development opportunities that were open to my generation have been removed………….
Would this be the same Vince Cable who, in 2011, introduced of tribunal fees for employees making claims for unfair dismissal against unscrupulous employers? ( The tribunal fees were later ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2017)
Would this be the same Vince Cable who wanted to scrap the Working Time Directive;
Would this be the same Vince Cable who scrapped 3,000 regulations including a major reduction in health and safety inspections for shops, pubs, and offices.
Would this be the same Vince Cable who proposed changes to employment laws, to reduce employee compensation for unfair dismissals?
The list goes on. With ‘friends’ like Vince youngsters, trying to get on in today’s often hostile workplace, don’t need many enemies.
I am old too but I do not recall all those wonderful opportunities except through rose tinted spectacles. It was more like 5 – 10 % of my generation who got to a university and it was not so easy to get a good job as younger people seem to think. There were plenty of jobs in factories just as there are now jobs available in service industries. People of humble birth had a chance to get a good position if they went to a grammar school but all those jobs now go to the children of better off parents who can afford to send them to fee paying schools so the young can blame all the politicians especially Labour and the Liberals but also the Conservatives for that.
As regards housing most of my contemporaries lived in rather basic bed sitters, not their own houses, until they married, if they were lucky. If we have our own houses now it is because we had to work hard to buy them. I think the writers of the above comments are the lucky ones. I remember young people in the 1980s complaining that old people had a lot of money but most had done a lifetime of hard work and saved for their retirement. Most young people now have a much better life than people did before.
expats : – Not all tribunal claims are or were made against “unscrupulous” employers.
Courts are business like any others and it is not surprising that the Supreme Court wished to protect lawyers against a potential loss of business.
nvelope2003 20th Oct ’18 – 12:46pm…………………..expats : – Not all tribunal claims are or were made against “unscrupulous” employers. Courts are business like any others and it is not surprising that the Supreme Court wished to protect lawyers against a potential loss of business…………..
When the only defence of Cable’s actions is to call into question the impartiality of the Supreme Court things have got pretty desperate in the party.
@Peter Watson
“The many important social, economic and political problems highlighted here all arose while we were members of the EU so offering Remain as a panacea is not enough in and of itself, and stating that Brexit will make things even worse does not seem to resonate with those who already feel hard done by.”
There is a lot to unpack here. No remain is not a panacea – nor conversely will Brexit be terrible. But I am clear in myself that economic growth will be greater within the EU than outside it. And you are already seeing firms – particularly in the car manufacturing and financial sectors curtailing investment and shipping jobs from the UK.
Clearly the Brexit vote was a cry from the heart from many who had had a difficult time and who felt let down by all the political parties. A “change election” when we hadn’t had a change election.
Obviously today Vince is addressing a pro-Remain audience. And many in the “younger” generation DO feel that the older generation had some good things – better private pensions, cheaper and better quality housing and EU membership and are now pulling up the drawbridge on them.
Of course many older people have sacrificed and had a difficult time. And I do have immense optimism – the younger generation are more sensible, more intelligent, better qualified than ever before. But it is disappointing for essentially the older generation – and that IS who voted for Brexit to deny them better economic growth.
Older people traditionally bemoan “the youth of today” – perhaps it is at least understandable if younger people do the same about older people!
Catherine Jane Crossland. I agree with you, and as someone a few months old than Sir Vincent I think the old it is losing his touch. Too much hat and fudge and not enough radicalism. Still find it hard to forgive the privatisation of the Royal Mail.
Predictive text is a pain.
My late father, a low-grade civil servant, used to say that he was a better off in retirement than when he was working. To my surprise I ended up in a similar situation (although the tied accommodation complicated things). If you have a decent occupational pension while other people’s are shrinking and paid NI contributions in a way that maximizes the state pension – chuck in a bus pass whatever you think that is worth – it is perfectly possible. You can still have lived your life as a lower paid worker and recognize that young people are unlikely to be able to echo my father. I’ve done my sums without adding on the councillor’s allowance by the way.
Im on the basic State Pension & to me it feels like Im rolling in money, certainly I am better off than I have ever been before, in work or out. What Vince says about the role of Older Voters in The Brexit vote is simply the facts & admitting the facts is the first step to changing them.
@David Raw
Hat and fudge about sums it up.
Lib Dem activists demand better
@ Michael 1,
‘Your generation ( the young) is being betrayed by mine. By those who looked to the past. Who see Britain as a museum’.
This is not a fact, it is a statement dripping with contempt.
I agree with Peter Watson.
I suggest one tries a little experiment. Using the words, Liberal Democrats, young people and the hyperbolic term betrayal in the same sentence, ask young people the first thing that comes to mind.
expats: I think it is generally accepted that older people were more inclined to support Brexit than young people. Courts are not meant to be impartial. They are there to interpret the law. Those who sit on the bench are human beings as well as lawyers.
Some tribunal claims were not fair to the employer but motivated by revenge and or a desire to make money and sometimes they succeeded despite the supposed impartiality. For a small employer this can be devastating.
It has been known for some time that many ordinary pensioners are better off than those who are working on low pay, partly because they may have paid off their mortgage and do not have the costs of getting to work, bringing up children etc. Some may be jealous that the young seem to be having a better time than they did but that is what material progress means.
@ nvelope 2003,
May I point you towards a report by the Joseph Rowntree Trust.
‘Brexit explained: Poverty, low skills and lack of opportunity’
It is available online.
“Your generation is being betrayed by mine. By those who look to the past, who see Britain as a museum.”
If there were to be a second referendum, there will be a major problem with older people being intimidated by younger people into voting Remain. I know at least two people who would not feel able to vote Leave again because they feel intimidated by the views of their children. Vince Cable should not be stoking up this atmosphere of intimidation.
Teejay: I thought the ballot was secret as my late mother used to say when I asked her how she voted. Unless you know something we don’t know.
Jayne Mansfield: Yes – unfortunately the education system does not help. We now have selection by parental wealth.
nvelope2003 21st Oct ’18 – 9:28am…………………It has been known for some time that many ordinary pensioners are better off than those who are working on low pay, partly because they may have paid off their mortgage and do not have the costs of getting to work, bringing up children etc. Some may be jealous that the young seem to be having a better time than they did but that is what material progress means……………
Regarding the jealousy of the young against their elders; a position ”stoked” by Vinces injudicious remarks… perhaps they, and he, might consider that the old have experienced low pay, mortgages (with rates in double figures), costs of getting to work, bringing up children, etc.
They might also consider the advantages of being young; being ‘nearer the cradle than the grave’ for starters, usually better health, etc. I consider myself ‘comfortably off’ but there aren’t many twenty one year olds that I’d not do a ‘body swap’ with.