I am an Englishman of the wrinkled and grey variety who is also very much in favour of staying within the EU and I’m wondering how much David Cameron is suffering from his self-inflicted foot injury (“Our membership of the EU could fall down the generation gap”, Comment).
The consensus reveals that it is the younger voter who mostly favours remaining in the EU but those feckless youths are also those most likely to be on their games console, or some other youthful self-indulgence, come the day of reckoning.
But who can blame them, after over of a decade of enduring our frustrating and stressful education system? Who can blame them for wanting to break loose and turn their backs on responsibility for a spell?
But not so those who are still at school, those whose teachers may well inform them on a regular basis how important it is to remain in the EU; those 16- and 17-year-olds who were refused the opportunity to vote so recently. How’s the foot, Dave?
Jared Morgan
Newent
Glos
It is disappointing that you highlight the difference in support for our continued membership of the EU between young and older voters.
This can only serve to foment anti-elderly feeling among first-time holders of the franchise, as they are encouraged to think that their futures are being decided by those who won’t be around for much longer. In fact, it is the fault of the young for abstaining in such numbers that has led governments to prioritise the wishes of elderly voters.
They have the opportunity of going to the polls the same as the rest of us, so we shouldn’t pander to the desires of the apathetic. As the old saying goes, if you don’t vote then don’t complain.
Tim Mickleburgh
Grimsby
Andrew Rawnsley’s article is about a freedom not to cast one’s vote, something the older are still not accustomed to here while the younger are.
Whatever the outcome of your referendum over your membership in the EU, you can understand our despondent opposition parties destined to be voted out by our predominantly female, and elderly, conservatively pro-Kremlin electorate.
So there is absolutely no need to sedulously deny vote-rigging for Mr Putin as he being in the Kremlin is a shoo-in. You and we might have opted for a compulsory voting system like that in Greece but that would hardly be a panacea as it would smack of driving all the population to a cinema showing a mindless Hollywood blockbuster aimed at teenagers.
When you don’t know whom to tick in your ballot list you tick anyhow and a winner comes through all the same.
Mergen Mongush
Moscow
Reading Andrew Rawnsley on the forthcoming referendum, I remembered Cameron has spent the last six years rubbishing the young in every way imaginable. The younger voter has caught it in the neck over jobs, wages, benefits, housing and education, to name the most obvious.
I’m 71 but I can still remember being 17. My 17-year-old response to Cameron would have been a stiff finger and to do the complete opposite of what he wanted. Cameron’s exhortations today will probably be counterproductive.
Martin London
Henllan
Denbighshire
