OK the headline might be a little OTT but Wordsworth’s famous next line perhaps less so “But to be young was very heaven!” For Labour’s victory was very much a win for the young and therefore for the future.
That we are governed by old (mostly) men is not contradicted by the defeat of the 44-year-old Rishi Sunak by the 61-year-old Keir Starmer. The choice of the young was overwhelmingly for Labour or the LibDems. Less than ten percent of the electorate under 24 voted Conservative (over 65 it was 40%).
If you’ve most of your adult life ahead of you you don’t want to be governed by narrow bitter old men nostalgic for a fictional memory of the past. John Major got it wrong when he pitched this nostalgia. Thirty years ago he said this:
“Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.”
We are not that country and, arguably, we never were. If you are 20 you are surely grateful that with twenty years to go Major’s promise won’t be fulfilled, Even more you are likely to reject Reform’s coded support for “British culture and values” and its leaders’ rejection of multiculturalism. The likelihood is that your education to date, at school and afterwards, will have been in a mixed heritage environment. Indeed you are quite likely to be from a minority yourself.
So a young voter will have looked at what was on offer and rejected gloom and pessimism as the mindset of people with whom they have little in common. They will have rejected the blame culture that was grist to the mill for the defeated Tory government.
We are where we are and it’s not been a happy place. But we can now look forward not back. It won’t be easy. Wordsworth was disappointed with the outcome of the French Revolution. We must ensure that our children and grandchildren are not disappointed by ours. For revolution is what it is ! Over to you Sir Keir. No pressure!
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
I love Wordsworth’s poem The Prelude. It’s rather fitting for the moment and thanks for writing and reminding me of it. I recall reading it at school when it didn’t resonate. Now as an old man, I see its wonderful message, and that’s the point. The journey of life can be so many things, dangerous, thrilling, hurtful, and passionate. When you have lived it it’s gone. Never return to a place where you were happy. All we have is the now.
When politicians talk of old values returning it’s not a virtue. Have you ever watched an old TV series or film from the sixties and seventies? The past is not a desirable place to return to. The support for Farage and Reform is based entirely upon it—their support from almost entirely the elderly populations of a declining region of Britain longing for the impossible. The past.
Starmers the now and tomorrow. His party will renew Britain. He gives us that vital emotion -hope. Blair did the same and delivered it. We all should be in good heart.
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You do realise Starmer isn’t actually going to do anything or change anything? Business as usual but with red rosettes instead of blue. Your previous commenter who thinks it’s going to be renewal and hope (“hope and change” anyone?) is way off-beam.
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I disagree. Promising start.
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