Over 50s in UK politically right-wing

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The over 50s, who form half of the adult population, were voting in their thousands on the night of March 2nd 2015 on which political party leader ‘best performed’ on the only seven-party political debate that night.

Silversurfers.com, who hosted the poll, has revealed that Prime Minister David Cameron performed best with 27% of the vote and his current Deputy, Nick Clegg getting a disastrous 3% - a mighty change for the Liberal Democrat leader from five years ago.

The results themselves came out about as follws:

  • David Cameron leads as best performer with 27% of the votes

  • SNP’s leader Nicola Sturgeon was very close behind with 26%

  • Nigel Farage beat off Ed Miliband with 24% with just 14% for the Labour leader

  • Nick Clegg turned out to be a disaster in this poll with just 3% of the vote

The poll which saw over 1,100 over 50s vote also revealed and quite surprisingly that Nicola Sturgeon was a close 2nd getting 26% of the vote. Despite her continued pledge to separate Scotland one day from the United Kingdom, many of the over 50s were commenting that maybe a Conservative-SNP coalition might be a good thing!

The voting did not go in the favor of Ed Miliband, at all, which saw him fall far behind UKIP leader Nigel Farage who got 24% of the votes.

When we see how the older working class, for instance, run, literally, over to UKIP and even other right-wing parties and groups the radio call from a certain Apollo spacecraft “Houston, we seem to have a problem,” rings in one's ears, only that the call is not being made to Houston but to all of those that look for a better alternative to Toryism and Capitalism. Another five years of the Tories in Britain and the poor and working class in this country will have nothing left.

While it may be true that the 50s were not mentioned once in the two hour debate, particularly as they are now nearly half the adult UK population. The aging population was mentioned in relation to the NHS but there was no debate on how the UK will manage a society that is increasingly living longer with many over 50s having a vast untapped experience that could be used to help the youth of today learn “new” skills.

But, then again, none of the politicians in that debate seem to have mentioned the over 50s who are making choices that they may come to regret when they no longer have the social services and the NHS to rely on free at the point of delivery when they need them, if they give the Tories another five years to destroy the country and especially the welfare state.

On the other hand the over 50s indeed have often untapped skills and experience that could be used to help the youth of today to learn “new” skills; new meaning here skills that will be important in a new society to be built on the ruins of the old, the latter which is about to fall apart around our ears.

Capitalism cannot be reformed, and neither can the Labour Party. What this country, and indeed the world, the Planet, needs is a new movement, a new society, a new system, that takes account of both man and Planet, and where the economy is based on the resources and not on ever more and more growth.

To achieve that, however, we must get the over 50s away from the fascist ideas that they, currently, are appear to be following, from the ideas of the Tories, of UKIP, the EDL and others.

It was frightening to see how many of that age group seem to be in the marches of PEGIDA, which joined with the EDL, in London, for instance, on Saturday, April 3, 2015. And it is also those of the fifty and over age bracket that appear to be the majority of the members of the AfD and PEGIDA in Germany. Although, it has to be said, that also many young, especially unemployed and working class men and women, are being caught up in this.

© 2016