Saturday 10 October 2015

How to patronise older people Mhairi Black style

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Too often we treat older people as if they are incapable of independent thought. And nowhere is this worse than among left-leaning politicians. Here's SNP wunderkind Mhairi Black patronising the hell out of old people under the heading: "We need to help our elderly see through the Tories' scare stories":

Too many of them were on an information diet of fear and scaremongering from Better Together; force-fed Unionist spin by a biased establishment and a host of questionable reporting. And it worked. Analysis of the referendum vote revealed it was older voters who significantly voted No.

The inference here is that old people are incapable of independent thought and analysis, that their desire to remain in the United Kingdom they've spent their lives in is somehow the consequence of ignorance, of an inability to understand things unless they're guided by their youngers and betters.

It really is about time politicians like Ms Black started treating older people as intelligent human beings capable of thinking for themselves and making up their own minds. They're not "our elderly" to be patronised but John, Sid, Mary and Sylvia - men and women with stories to tell and lessons they can teach us.

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