SNP’s grey bashing is a shameful new trend

NEIL Hay sounds a lovely sort of chap, doesn’t he? The SNP candidate for Edinburgh South has been exposed as an online troll who in 2012 sent a sheaf of offensive tweets including one comparing Unionist Scots to Nazi collaborators.

Just last month, he remarked that there were a ‘disproportionate number of non Scots accents’ during a TV debate in Edinburgh. Is there some sort of quota? What qualifies as a Scots accent? Will he be issuing guidelines, and will those with too many glottal stops and the occasional flat ‘e’ be rejected?

Of most concern, however, are Mr Hay’s comments about the elderly, in which he mocked older voters who ‘barely know their own name’. As I say, a lovely sounding sort of chap. Why Nicola Sturgeon has refused to sack him is beyond me.

But there is a wider issue at stake here, and one that is troubling. For it appears that it is becoming increasingly acceptable to insult the older voter, as though they were some terrible drag on the ticket who’d really be better off staying at home watching Watercolour Challenge and sucking on a Werther’s Original come polling day.

In the hot-headed aftermath of the referendum, a poll by Lord Ashcroft suggested that the elderly had been less likely to vote Yes than their more youthful counterparts. Cue much frothing at the mouth about how the over-60s had ‘robbed the young’, accusations that they had been selfish and wished only to line their own pension pots. Some went so far as to suggest they should never have been allowed to vote at all. It was later revealed that Ashcroft’s poll was inaccurate – in fact the only age group that had voted Yes more than No was the 25-39 bracket – but the damage was already done.

Even Alex Salmond – in his desperate attempt to blame everyone but himself for the Yes campaign’s defeat – jumped on the bandwagon, declaring: ‘Scots of my generation and above should really be looking at themselves in the mirror and wondering if we by majority, as a result of our decision, have actually impeded progress for the next generation.’

Why? Does something magically happen at the age of 60 that means you are no longer allowed a say in the democratic process of your own country?

I understand there is a generational divide – that the current ‘grey pound’ is one envied by younger generations as some of today’s over 60s enjoy affluent lifestyles, nice properties and jolly holidays. But why not? They have worked their entire lives, paid their taxes, contributed to society, and now they get to reap the benefits. That’s how it works.

I was brought up to respect my elders. It’s a lesson Mr Hay – and a plethora of the SNP’s younger voters – could do with learning.