Stop the elderly voting, Paxo? It’s the YOUNG we should bar from elections!

FOR a highly educated Cambridge graduate and author of respected academic books, Jeremy Paxman can be utterly stupid. This week the 67-year-old said his fellow pensioners have betrayed the young by living high on the hog at their expense — and they should be denied the vote after the age of 65.

‘My generation have behaved like spoilt children,’ he declares, blaming them for the crisis in pensions and housing. ‘In between getting a job and demanding our pensions, we have sat on our arses and watched our houses appreciate in value.’ Meanwhile, he says, the young struggle to get on the housing ladder.

he adds smugly that he doesn’t take his state pension or winter fuel allowance. ‘They’ve still got to be paid by other people,’ he explains.

how rich coming from a man who was paid by ‘other people’ like us licence payers for three decades at the BBC, and who ended up with a £1 million-plus salary and gold-plated BBC pension. Of course he can afford to forgo his state pension. But why should others be made to feel guilty in their well-earned retirement?

Paxman’s argument plays into an insidious modern narrative promoted by the Left where the elderly are considered a burden and the young are hapless victims. With sickening cynicism, Corbyn’s Labour demands votes for callow, idealistic 16-year-olds believing they will back his kind of socialism. Polls indicate

WHAT a pity First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon isn’t joining the Tories’ Ruth Davidson on The Great Celebrity Bake Off, as we could all have learnt how to make her signature dish at last — an over-stuffed little haggis.

many young people today, who wouldn’t even know how to spell stalin let alone understand the horrors he was responsible for, consider the sins of capitalism to be greater than those of communism.

Meanwhile, demands for renationalisation are more shrill by the day and the hard Left is on the march.

The wisdom of Paxo’s generation is vital in such a world. Today’s pensioners remember how communism led to the genocide of millions, nationalised businesses such as British Rail were a byword for incompetence and stupendous inefficiency and loony Left councils reduced cities to bankrupt chaos.

The over-65s also understand the need for austerity because many times in the past 60 years they have had to learn to budget.

I have a suggestion for Mr Paxman. Rather than banning people from voting at 65, why not raise the voting age to, say, 25?

At least by then our pampered youth would have gained a little experience of the world.