Hatred for the elderly is poisonous
THIS column is no place for anger, yet many of you tell me you feel as if you really know me — so why should I deceive you by hiding my feelings?
The young are forever talking about ‘triggers’ that offend. Well, I’ve been well and truly triggered and feel like a gangster’s moll with a six-shooter in my stocking!
It was a young woman called Joanna Jarjue who did it. She ‘starred’ in The Apprentice but who would promote somebody so intolerant and out of date?
Jarjue argued on TV that people over 70 shouldn’t have the vote. Indeed, a new survey has shown that 47 per cent of those aged 16-34 are in favour of banning over-70s from the franchise. Can you believe this?
Since the EU referendum there has been a surge in nasty ageism — and not just among the young. The novelist Ian McEwan (71) has joked about the death of the elderly idiots who voted Leave — hooray, he thinks, more for Remain.
Leftist journalists have piled in with similar contempt. For a time, there was even a website tracking how many old Brexit voters had died since 2016.
My colleague Richard Littlejohn is fond of saying ‘you couldn’t make it up’ and boy, is he right! This hatred for the elderly is poisonous.
I write ‘elderly’ but these people are talking about me. And many of you. And Helen Mirren and Keith Richards.
Will fascistic youngsters in jackboots come to take us all to be euthanised? Our accumulated wisdom, strength, experience and sheer bloody style only fit for the knacker’s yard? That’s in contrast to hapless millennials who are ignorant of the timing, reasons and pain of World War II.
The point is, this attitude is so damned uncool. ‘Woke’ folk like Jarjue bleat endlessly about ‘diversity’ — but only the kind that suits them.
They are as blinkered as 19thcentury toffs, with no excuse of different times. Prejudice is not a good look. Makes you sound like your great-great-grandad.
÷ Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.