Ross Clark

meet from incomes which are failing to keep pace with inflation.

True, people with investments have made very good returns over the past few years and the triple-lock on the state pension has protected it from erosion by inflation. But not everyone has investments and the basic state pension of £122.30 is not a huge sum.

For many people it is a case of trying to supplement the state pension with their savings. It is these people – evidently unknown to Paxman – who have really been hammered since the financial crisis.

Ultra-low interest rates, which were supposed to have been only a temporary measure, have robbed them of income. In real terms their wealth is shrinking and shrinking – even without spending it.

Paxman seems to lack any insight that he is the one who is living it up on the taxpayer. When he was presenting Newsnight and University Challenge he was reported to be earning £1million a year from the BBC – way beyond any salary which can be justified from a public service broadcaster funded by a hypothecated tax: the television licence fee.

Nor is it true that his generation have always had it easy. Given that he went to a public school and went on to Cambridge

WHILE it was easier to get on the housing ladder that didn’t mean owning a place with power showers and marble worktops. Many homes were cheap because they were crumbling, damp hellholes with no central heating. Even into the 1980s a significant number of homes had no indoor loo.

Paxman isn’t the only one who has seen fit to attack the elderly. Ever since the Brexit vote there has been a horrible growing prejudice against the over-65s, who stand accused of “stealing” their grandchildren’s future by voting Leave.

Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, 74, has like Paxman attacked his own generation on several occasions. I always thought that a universal democracy was a cornerstone of liberal beliefs but apparently not in today’s Lib Dems.

It is true that the over-65s vote in greater numbers than do young people and that therefore they have a disproportionate influence on policy. But all political parties have bent over backwards to try to encourage the young to vote. But short of fining non-voters, as happens in Australia and some other countries, there is only so much politicians can do.

To suggest banning elderly people from voting is not just offensive. It would be an act worthy of a dictatorship.

‘It’s not true that his generation had it easy’