You might not know it because it’s not really that interesting, but right now pensions are PM David Cameron’s favourite topic, it seems. And he thinks it might be one of ours, too.
He said that young people will support his promises to keep pensioners in free benefits, such as bus passes, TV licences, winter fuel allowances and eye tests, because old people: ‘have done so much for us, this is the least we can do for them. And I’ll tell you what — the younger generation agree.’
He continued: ‘Ask anyone: do you want your parent or grandparent to be looked after as they grow old? They will say yes,’ reports the BBC. ‘Like me, those children and grandchildren want nothing more than for the older generation to be given the dignity and security they deserve.’
And yeah, not including the millionaire pensioners, or the ones who have fiddled their own taxes at some point along the way. Those of us who have grandparents would love dignity and security for them, but maybe things like improved care homes and facilities would change that (both have received council cuts since the last election). Or, stuff like… well, actually, we can’t go on, because we know a lot more about young people than we do about pensioners.
We know that politicians don’t really talk about us that much, despite our high unemployment rates, despite the fact so many of us find it hard to rent, let alone buy property. We’ll hear speeches about ‘hard-working families’, ‘the squeezed middle’, ‘first-time buyers’ and ‘the older generation’, but the last time we heard a party leader talk about young people, it was Ed Miliband saying that about a million of us won’t vote in May because it’s too tricky to register.
And the PM only decided to talk about young people because he’d come under fire for not thinking of them when making his promises.
Mark Littlewood, director general at the Institute of Economic Affairs, told The Mirror: ‘Politicians must stop trying to woo elderly voters at the expense of other generations.’
Basically, to Mr Littlewood at least, it looked like Cameron could be trying to please a group of people who are both famously Conservative but famously politically active, in the sense that they actually vote.
What does it look like to you?
**Liked this? You might also be interested in: **
Ant And Dec Have Ditched Ed Milliband. Do Celebrity Endorsements Really Change How People Vote?
Meet The Green Party Candidates You’ll Want To Be Best Mates With
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.