On Gammon...

It’s a poor insult because let’s face it, even pigs know not to defecate where they eat.

The latest pejorative buzz word has caused quite a stir. Not because it’s particularly offensive or even that original, having previously been coined by none other than Charles Dickens, but because it appears to target a very specific group within society - and they are not at all happy about it.

Typically the left would be thoroughly against any nouns which appear to tar a particular social group with the same derogatory brush, but in this case it seems almost everyone is willing to waive the rules. If you’ll allow me one small pun, it could be described as a whitewash.

I am of course talking about Gammon, a collective term for men of a certain age often found stood up in the audience of question time barking a strongly held belief that politicians work exclusively for them personally. And they are right to demand our respect - after all, as baby boomers they nearly served in the war and some of them had even been born during it.

But why are millenials turning on the baby boomers? How did we reach this point of peak gammon? Was it simply millenials getting tired of being written off as naive snowflakes, or is there something running much deeper beneath this clash of the generations?

The boomers are right to be nervous. They have exercised political carte blanche for the last half a century. Their generation hugely outweighed their children, but as their grandchildren reach voting age they are finding out Conservative voters are dying off much faster than they can be replaced.

I must confess to feeling a certain sense of pity for them - having grown up suckling at the teat of the Marshall plan, which saw the biggest social house building project the country has ever known and being privy to the first vote on joining the single market, the World must have felt like it was theirs for the taking.

And take it they did. By the time Thatcher came around they were among a minority of social groups financially well endowed enough to truly take advantage of the Great British Sell-Off. They snatched up cheap ex council stock and have been renting them back to us at more than the cost of a mortgage ever since.

In spite of all the restrictive rules and laws the EU unfairly imposed on them, they remain the wealthiest generation to date holding most of the top jobs, lands and properties. They ask recently graduated millenials to work for free, calling the experience an ‘internship’ and claiming the benefit of their wealth of knowledge ought to be remuneration enough.

For those lucky enough not to be burdened by the debt associated with a university education, something their generation knew nothing about due to a system of grants they felt we would no longer needed, they offer zero hours contracts and bless us with the “gig economy”.

An altogether much more exciting way to work because you don’t know day to day which of your multiple employers, if any, will be offering you work. Work which may, or may not be enough hours to cover our rent, and by extension their mortgages.

The benevolent architects of this new economic wonder have every right to be upset that moaning, loony lefty, snowflake cuck, traitor, millenials are damaging political discourse through childish insults - it’s not like THEY had iPhones when they were our age and thanks to them, we now have our beloved blue passports back.

If only they hadn’t made such a pigs ear of the economy following the financial crash, we may have had the same pork tinted glasses for consumer capitalism they have been wearing their entire lives, and actually see a benefit in continuing to vote for it.

Sadly for them, that doesn’t seem to be the case and for the first time in a generation the socialist principles they squeal so negatively about are thoroughly on the cards and in the mainstream of politics.

Is it any wonder they fear the next general election so much?