DAVID Attenborough, a 92-year-old nonagenarian, has just delivered, to a worldwide audience, an apocalyptic warning about the collapse of civilisation if governments do not agree to a cut in greenhouse emissions.

His long career, both at the top of the BBC and as an unrivalled expert on matters of the natural world, make him, despite his age, well qualified to speak on these subjects.

He has not, however, joined the two million or so members of the older generation who have died since the referendum vote who many Remainers believe a majority of whom voted for Brexit.

Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Party, has made no secret of the fact that the Liberal Party wants a second ballot on leaving the EU, a view shared by many in the Labour Party and some in the Tory Party.

He believes that those younger people, who have now turned 18 and are now eligible to vote since the referendum, are more likely to vote to remain opening a possibility of the UK staying in the EU if there is a second vote.

There seems to be a perception that somehow the older generation have ‘stolen’ young people’s future by voting to leave the EU.

It seems a somewhat uncomfortable doctrine wishing, by implication, for the death of those who oppose your viewpoint, but then the Liberals have form in policy decisions having been guilty of opportunism when it comes to getting their hands on the levers of power.

Just remember their volte face when they reneged over their policy on student loan fees, helping to shackle many students to years of debt.

Their policy of a second ballot implies that older people’s views, gained by a life time of experience, count for nothing as compared to the inexperience of youth who have yet to be exposed to life and the failings of politicians.

This appears to me, as a member of the older generation, to be the policy of cynical despair something which seems to have pervaded politics in recent years.

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