Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

What you believe has everything to do with how old you are

issue 25 May 2013

We’ve got bogged down, that’s the thing. Bogged down and caught up, all at once. The Prime Minister is rude about people and people mind, even if they’re the sort of people who are habitually rude about him. Europe is a mess we either need or we don’t, and the notion of chaps marrying other chaps gets everybody terribly excited, whether they’re in favour or against. And so travelled are these paths of debate, and so much fun do we all have having them, that I suspect we’ve lost sight of the biggest political fight of all. Which isn’t really about any of these things at all, but about people. And how old they are.

Personally, I’m not normally a fan of columns based upon numbers. My preferred battlefields are the smaller ones of individual hearts and minds, and bludgeoning my way with bushels of statistics isn’t usually my style. Plus you need to look them up, and Lord it’s exhausting.

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