Brexit v Peter Gouldstone: Let’s blame Remainers for granny bashing gone mainstream
The tabloids are tucking into the brutal attack on Peter Gouldstone, a 98-year-old beaten by burglars at his home in Bounds Green, North London. The burglars – one or two; Mr Gouldstone cannot be certain how many people brutalised him in his own home – took a telly (estimated value: £50) and some other personal possessions. The Mirror leads with a question: “WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?” We? Us? Me and you? We didn’t change into violent thugs. We’d like the sods caught and punished. We’d like Mr Gouldstone to make a speedy recovery. We’d like more people to check on their elderly neighbours. We’d like more respect for the aged. And, no, no-one has yet blamed Brexit for this crime – but let’s not let the opportunity pass. If racist incidents can be pinned on Brexit, why not crimes against the aged? Did granny-bashing go mainstream when the older (and wiser) voted for Brexit?
A victim of ageism
The novelist Ian McEwan said Breix was secured by “a gang of angry old men” who’d soon be dead, blessedly. He calculated: “By 2019 the country could be in a receptive mood: 2.5 million over-18-year-olds, freshly franchised and mostly Remainers; 1.5 million oldsters, mostly Brexiters, freshly in their graves.” Lord Heseltine was totting up the bodies. “Of course what you then find is that every year a serious number of elderly people die who are Brexiteers,” he told LBC. “Their place is taken by a group of younger people who are pro-European. So I don’t believe that there is a majority anymore, so if we have all this talk of democracy – let’s put it to work.” Alastair Campbell said “it’s time the youth was heard on Brexit”. Esquire magazine’s voice of reason noted that “some of the oldest and whitest people on the planet leapt at a chance to vote against the monsters in their heads”. GQ broadcast the argument for “a total ban on anyone of retirement age voting in the EU referendum … We take pensioners’ driving licences away… why not their right to vote?” “The wrinkly bastards stitched us young uns up good and proper on Thursday,” wrote Times critic Giles Coren. “We should cut them off. Rewrite the franchise to start at 16 and end at 60 and do this thing all over again.” And we can identify which oldies to deride by asking them one question: Vat did you do in der var?:
“And don’t go telling me that we owe at least a debt of respect to the elderly. Respect for what? Don’t confuse the elderly of today with the elderly of the recent past. This lot did not fight a war (not many of them). They didn’t free us from the yoke of tyranny. They didn’t live in modesty and hardship and hunger so that future generations might thrive. They just enjoyed high employment, good pay, fat benefits, enormous pension privileges, international travel, the birth of pop music and lashings of free sex. We don’t owe them a thing.”
The Sun says Peter Gouldstone is a “war hero”. Best he wear his war medals from now on so the righteous, fair-minded youth and their middle-aged enablers can identify which oldies to hate.
And on it went. TV presenter James Corden chimed: “I can’t get my head around what’s happening in Britain. I’m so sorry to the youth of Britain. I fear you’ve been let down today.”
The Daily Record offered: “The generation aged between 18 and 30 have been done precious few favours by the ballot-box activities of their elders. They have inherited international uncertainty, low wages, zero-hour contracts, and a political system which, at times, looks broken beyond repair.” Louise Ridley told Huffington Post readers, the young had been “screwed by older generations”.
“I saw this older couple in the street and just felt this sudden, enormous wave of fury towards them and their generation. It was almost physical,” said a knowing Guardian writer. Owen Jones wanted the young to “ring your grandparents” and tell them to vote Labour.
The old, bigoted enemy within ruined the world. Get the old! Ageism is good.
Maybe Peter Gouldstone’s ordeal has nothing to do with Brexit. Maybe the people who attacked Peter Gouldstone have no-one to blame but themselves. Maybe broken bones are not the same as harsh words, and equating physical violence and offensive language is wrong; “to claim that a speaker or writer can be held directly responsible for the actions of others infantilises the listeners.”
Maybe – just maybe – each of us is an individual who just account for their own actions. Let’s not give the bastards who attacked Peter Goulstone any excuse. It wasn’t us. It was them.
Posted: 8th, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
