Living by the seaside.....thoughts and things...............

Monday 5 April 2010

The grey vote....is it a good thing?

Research from Age UK shows that four out of 10 potential voters will be older than 55. And in  more than 300 constituencies, including 94 marginal seats in England, Scotland and Wales the older voters will be in the majority.

The over 55s tend to turn out more to actually vote than the younger generation and 319 out of the 632 potential seats could be affected, with the older generation having more influence in this election than ever before.

But is that a good thing? Research shows older voters will be concerned about care, age discrimination, the NHS and pensions, all valid points, but they aren't the only issues, are they?

Is it right that one age group should have so much control? What about things like education, job creation and housing? Is there a danger that older voters won't rate these as so important?

 It could be we get more selfish as we get older and don't look to the future of the current and next generation, who, after all, are the one's still out there creating and earning the wealth and paying taxes.

And older people aren't going to be sent out to fight and die in wars but have an interest in maintaining the status quo and safety at home, so will they be happier to send young people away to fight?

As our population gets more top heavy you could get a situation where the young are working much harder, with little hope of owning a home or building a pension, while the older, retired folk who already have these things but are in the majority when it comes to voting, decide how the youngsters hard earned tax money is spent, i.e for the benefit of the elderly!

3 comments:

Pan 5 April 2010 at 14:39  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous,  5 April 2010 at 14:41  

If the under-55's don't bother to vote, they can hardly complain if the over-55's do!

Pan 5 April 2010 at 22:42  

Sorry. I had trouble with the comments box earlier and deleted myself.

No I do not think that older voters would be happier to send young people off to war, especially as many of the grey voters will be parents and grandparents.

I don't agree with the last point either, whilst some older, retired folk do enjoy the benefit of their life's labour i.e. owning property and a comfortable pension, many more do not and will end their days living on a meagre state pension.

Hopefully I will be able to post this comment without drama!

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