HOW CORBYN INSPIRED HOPE
RULE Number One: politicians must learn from the mistakes of others – or pay the price.
Gordon Brown upset old folk with his 75p-a-week pension rise and Labour took a big hit at the polls.
But stubborn, arrogant Theresa May and her teenage advisers knew better. She thought she could attack grey voters because they supported Brexit.
Her manifesto pledge to scrap the winter fuel allowance for 10 million elderly, abolish the pension “triple lock” and bring in a “Dementia Tax” for social care cost her dearly.
Absolutely predictable. If there’s anything likely to get up the backs of oldies like me, it’s being taken for granted. And that’s what she did.
The Dementia Tax and Mrs May’s U-turn over an unspecified cap on social care costs played badly on the doorstep, Conservative candidates found.
Me and the missus LIKE most people I was surprised, and proud, when I saw the election results.
Even better was the number of people aged 18-24 who voted – some say 72% – which is an incredibly important development.
As a 21-year-old, I sense change among my peers. In 2015, young people were sick of party politics and did not feel they could affect change, and this feeling spilled over to the referendum.
With that result it was clear how much each vote mattered – and we realised it.
A 24-year-old from Hull told me: “The referendum said to young people that if they didn’t act their future was going to be taken out of their hands – 75% of 18-24 year olds voted Remain while 61% of over-65s voted Leave. A vote by 52% of people left the 48% without a choice.”
If witnessing Brexit helped (combined age 145) took great pleasure in voting for Labour’s John Grogan in marginal Keighley in West Yorkshire, helping him to oust oafish Tory Kris Hopkins.
And when the number-crunchers do their work, I bet they find that hundreds of thousands of pensioners – if not millions – rejected Mrs Nasty because she rejected us.
Jeremy Corbyn offered not just a kindlier face, a softer voice and a genuine smile – not a clipped-on grimace – but a promise to keep the triple lock and other pensioner benefits.
He looks like one of us (dammit, he is one of us) and the contrast told you all you need to know about political sex appeal.
Mrs May forgot that elections can never be confined to the single issue vital to the prime minister who calls them. She forgot the lessons of history.
We didn’t. So, for Brexit read Mexit. She’s a goner. wake 18 to 24-year-olds up, Corbyn got them out of bed and to the polls by being distinctly un-Westminster.
Last general election, broken Lib Dem promises on student fees were ringing in the ears of me and my friends. Plenty of people felt Westminster had no clue about the issues that mattered to them.
At first I wasn’t sure what Corbyn could do for me, from the Barnsley heartlands.
I am so impressed with his campaign to get young people on board. His tuition fee pledge, Grime4Corbyn and appearing on the cover of Kerrang! harnessed the power of the youth vote.
May and the Tories didn’t even bother to engage.
Brexit stole young people’s future but, now shaken awake, they’re showing they know how to make that future better again.