BBC TELEVISION IF THE GENERATIONS FALL OUT FIRST UK TX: 24:03:04 FINAL SCRIPT (MARCH 2004) DURATION 57’20 COMMENTARY: In Europe and America a new type of conflict has been simmering for years. In Britain, in 2024 it is about to reach flash point. This conflict is different from anything that has gone before. Members of the same family will find themselves on opposite sides. Bill: You do realize that you’re talking about fighting against our own parents. Jack: Yes I am. PROF LAURENCE KOTLIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm”) It’s not a matter of if there’s going to be a generational fall out, it’s a matter of when and exactly how nasty it’s going to be. COMMENTARY: In twenty years time, it is the old who are in charge. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”): It’s going to have seismic effects on all aspects of our lives. You can go as far as to call it an age quake. COMMENTARY: The ageing population is bringing Britain to the brink of financial collapse. PROF JAMES SEFTON: If we don’t make any changes, there is likely to be some sort of political rebellion. COMMENTARY: Which the young generation are about to ignite. CHET TREMMEL: (Foundation for the Rts of Future Generations): We are not going to keep quite when a band of pampered pensioners steal the future from us. COMMENTARY: The experts agree it could happen, unless we act now. s/i IF The scenario you are about to see is fiction. The interviews and the issues raised, are real. IF … the Generations Fall Out London March 4th 2004-03-31 TOM KIRKWOOD (Institute for Ageing & Health, Newcastle University): We’ve seen an extraordinary revolution. Today’s seventy year olds are very much like the sixty year old or even a fifty year old, a generation or two ago. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission): What has changed over the last twenty or thirty years is that we have major increases in life expectancy from say sixty five onwards. TOM KIRKWOOD (Institute for Ageing & Health, Newcastle University) Old people are dying less. Over the last fifty years the death rate in people aged eighty and above has tumbled by 50%. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) It is possible that there is no limit to life. It’s possible that this life expectancy increase may go on for ever. TOM KIRKWOOD (Institute for Ageing & Health, Newcastle University): The fact that we humans are living much longer than anyone has lived on this planet before is probably the greatest achievement of our species. COMMENTARY: In 2024, for the first time in human history, there are more adults over sixty five than children, two million more. JACK: You’re late. BILL: Yeah, I know BILL: (to father) Dad I’m off. Be there in about ten. JACK: Yeah. COMMENTARY: Jack was born at the beginning of the 21st century when birth rates fell to historic low. It’s his generation that’s expected to carry the burden of caring for, and paying for the ageing population. JACK: I’m waiting COMMENTARY: The young of 2024 are becoming angry. They’re calling it generational fraud. Some have decided it can’t go on. PAUL WALLACE (Author, “Agequake”): Through almost all of human history, mankind has been very young and the characteristic shape of the human population has been a pyramid with a lot of young people at the base, and hardly any older people at the top. Now what’s happening now is that this population pyramid is inverting, and there will be more older people at the top and fewer younger people at the base and this change really amount to a revolution. COMMENTARY: The first signs of conflict between young and old appeared in Germany. Campaigners carried children’s coffins to the steps of the Reichstag in protest. CHET TREMMEL (Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations): Politicians are caving in to the grey lobby. They’re not listening to my generation any more because we don’t have the voting power. There’s already a conflict between the generations in my country, and if the necessary reforms are not carried out very soon, this conflict will happen also in Great Britain. COMMENTARY: In Britain, the time bomb exploded in the early 2020s. The cost of supporting the ageing population had reached breaking point. The government had to act and did so with a dramatic increase in taxes. In 2024 the young are paying 80% more tax on what they earn than their parents paid twenty years before. Out numbered at the ballot box, some are finding other outlets to express their anger. CHLOE: Hi guys. JACK: Hi. CHLOE: Oh, it’s freezing out there. BILL: So we pay they play. Did you think that one up all by yourself? JACK: Nice one mate. It’s the plain truth, that’s why we’re here, that’s why you’re all here. CHLOE: Er, actually, I don’t know why I’m here. JACK: Where are all the jokes? We’re the jokes because we let a bunch of pensioners turn us in to their slaves, so they can have a lovely retirement. BILL: I remember when you used to be fun Jack. JACK: I remember when I could afford to be fun. CHLOE: Oh Jack, you should try getting a sense of human it’s cheap. JACK: Fine…. I just don’t find getting robbed by my parents very funny. CHLOE: You do realise how stupid this sounds. I mean besides, we’re all going to get old, including you Jack. JACK: Yeah. And we can steal from our kids, and they can steal from theirs, and we can just pass the misery on. Look, how many of you can actually afford somewhere to live. Well forget that, how many of you can actually afford a holiday, just a holiday. All right, apart from this guy, who is hilariously funny, what do you think you can actually do about it. COMMENTARY: In Britain, in 2024, the old are no longer old, they feel younger, healthier and fitter than ever, and many of them are looking for ways to turn the clock back even further. CAROLINE: She’s gorgeous. ELIZABETHJ: Yeah. I bet that’s not real. CAROLINE: She’s had help. ELIZABETH: You really can’t tell anymore what’s real and what isn’t. CAROLINE: You know you can get it on the National Health now. ELIZABETH: Can you. CAROLINE: Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking. ELIZABETH: Maybe. CAROLINE: I want to be fancied again. When I was with David I never thought about it. Getting old didn’t seem to matter but now it does. COMMENTARY: The older generation of 2024 is unlike any previous one. They were born in the years following the Second World War when birth rates soared. Dominant, demanding and dynamic, they are the baby boomers. COMMENTARY: The baby boomers have always been at the forefront of social and economic change. ROSIE BOYCOTT: (Writer and Broadcaster) We all grew up with the idea that we had a voice, and that we were going to be different from our parents. COMMENTARY: When the baby boomers began to wield political power, they shook the western world. MUSIC – BOB DYLAN MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory): Baby boomers are driven by issues, so they’re not tied to a party, they are tied to a cause and an ideology. ROSIE BOYCOTT: (Journalist & Broadcaster) I’ve always been a campaigner right from my teens, early twenties, when I started Spare Rib and campaigned for women’s rights. I got the nick-name Rhysler Rosie because I began the campaign to de-criminalise cannabis. I don’t want to give up that sense of being involved in the things to do with change and that applies to vast numbers of our generation, and I think we’ll have an exciting old age. I think it is something that will be kind of rather thrilling, and it will shake up a lot of governments. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory): The boomers will become one of the most powerful lobbying groups ever. They have a history of revolution built in to their blood. They are people who are media aware, they are financially astute, they are in control of the corridors of power; so in twenty years time, we’ll see the emergence of old parties, of older voting blocks, of oldster lobbies. Suddenly, the issues will the crystallised round concerns related only to old people. In the future, old and young roles will be swapped over completely. The young will be grey, down trodden, watching the world to pass. And the world passing of course will be old looking bright and blonde and healthy and fit because they have the money, and also they have the dream to do so. CAROLINE: So what are you doing now? DOCTOR: I’m …. I’m just doing a computer map three dimensional image. TOM KIRKWOOD (Institute for Ageing & Health, Newcastle University): There’s nothing about complex life that says that death is inevitable. CAROLINE: Those creases down the side of my mouth, and the lines above my top lip. DOCTOR: Will disappear. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory): Age immunity is going to become one of the great holy grails people will seek out in the future. We won’t depend on the basic things of just exercise. We’ll work with science to keep people from ageing. The arrival for example have muscle vaccines which will be injected in to the muscle to make them super strong and super youthful. DOCTOR: Assuming there are no genetic issues, we should be able to book you in and proceed as soon as I get the biopsy results. CAROLINE: Good. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory) : You can see the emergence of cosmiceuticals, which are cosmetics and medicine working together to make you younger. Instead of having botox, you have photox, which is injecting proteins in to the skin to make it look healthy and young and elastic. ROSIE BOYCOTT: (Writer & Broadcaster) If the anti-ageing treatments are really safe and they really aren’t going to land you up with eyes that are like this, and a frozen looking face and weird smile, then I think mine would be, let’s go for it. DOCTOR: Now you do understand there may be a little pain associated with the injections but that will pass very quickly. CAROLINE: Don’t worry, I’ll be brave. DOCTOR: Good girl. TOM KIRKWOOD (Institute for Ageing & Health, Newcastle University): Ageing comes from the build-up of damage in the cells and tissues of bodies and we’re discovering that there are lots of ways in which we can slow that build-up of damage. CAROLINE: How exactly does it work. DOCTOR: Rejuvenate works by actually re-generating skin cells. CAROLINE: What all over. DOCTOR: All over, the results you get are real. You are going to see an incredible difference here, here and everywhere. These lines will disappear. Do you have a family. CAROLINE: A son, Jack. I’m divorced. DOCTOR: Well Jack is going to be very pleased. He will have a mother who could pass as a sister. Now, take this, it should be able to answer any further questions you like. NEWSCASTER: Mother’s Day looks like being demo day, that’s the warning from top cops in London. They’ve got evidence that activists opposed to what they call generational theft, plan to cause chaos across the capital. The activists are angry this year because one health authority has said it will offer anti ageing treatment on the NHS. COMMENTARY: In 2024, the young are mobilising. Many grievances are driving them to rebel. But one issue overshadows all the others. Pensions. NEWSCASTER: Last year’s protests were triggered by the government’s decision to abolish means testing for pensioners, and re-link pensions to earnings. Youth activists fear the government may be planning a further increase in the State pension in this year’s budget. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake): The 2020’s is the decade when you can see the threat of generational conflict becoming intense because that’s when the big generation of post war baby boomers born in the late 1950s and the 1960s, turn 65 and retire. And so they’ll be demanding resources, and of course that will put pressure on those people who provide resources through the tax system. COMMENTARY: The fuse was lit on the pension time bomb from the first day the scheme was set up. At the beginning of the 20th century, poverty in Britain was rife. And the oldest were among the poorest. In 1908, Lloyd George’s government, offered a pension for the neediest, if they were over seventy and could pass a moral character test. Few lived long enough to claim it. After the Second World War, the government made pensions more generous and universal. ARCHIVE: How old are you? If you’re as old as him, you will have found a big increase in your old age pension, now twenty six shillings for a single person, forty two shillings for a married couple. The Exchequer is finding the money to pay you for this. COMMENTARY: The Exchequer was finding the money for State pensions through worker’s taxes. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission): Twenty century pension systems and the generosity of them were vitally dependent on there being many more workers than there were retirees. They were like pyramid schemes. They were like chain letters. They only worked with that level of generosity because each new generation was larger than the one before and the problem is that the pyramid is coming to an end. COMMENTARY: The increase in life expectancy combined with a falling birth rate, means that the number of workers supporting every retired person, known as the support ratio, has fallen dramatically. When pensions were introduced, there were twenty two people of working age for every retired person. In 2024, there are less than three. COMMENTARY: When the Conservatives won power in 1979, Margaret Thatcher realised that fewer workers to support rising numbers of pensioners was going to be costly. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”: At the start of the 1980s, Mrs Thatcher’s government, decoupled the basic state pension from earnings growth. And earnings actually grow about 2% more a year than prices. And so over a time what this meant was that the basic state pension, although the same in real terms, was actually becoming an ever diminishing sum in relation to the rising prosperity of the country. COMMENTARY: When Labour won in 1997, they didn’t reverse the Tory policy, despising their own pledge. Instead they offered help to poorer pensioners. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”: Well the government maintains that everything is well. And that we can carry on spending just 5 to 6% of the economy on pensions, and you have to ask yourself whether this really can be sustained when the number of pensioners is going to grow by 40%. And many people looking at this just think that the sums don’t add up, and that the bill will be much more expensive. COMMENTARY: In 2004, pensioners were mobilizing to demand higher government spending on pensions. And they formed political parties to press their case. JOHN SWINBURNE MSP (Scottish Senior Citizens’ Unity Party): I started the grey party in Scotland, and within eleven weeks, having touched a raw nerve, I was elected to the Scottish parliament. JOHN SWINBURNE: We will seek actually though the courts. JOHN SWINBURNE MSP (Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party): If I can achieve this in 11 weeks, there is no stopping this movement. COMMENTARY: In England, rising council tax bills have increased the militancy of the old. CAROLINE: Grey power is here. At my age I don’t think it matters if I have a prison sentence. They’re going to have to take notice of us, nearly 25% of the electorate, they can’t ignore us completely. COMMENTARY: But the gains of pensioners will be at the expense of younger tax payers. JOHN SWINBURNE MSP (Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party): There is no doubt in my mind that you will in the future, will have to contribute a bit more to make sure that the elderly are kept in a comfortable state. COMMENTARY: In 2024 it’s the young, not the old who are demonstrating. JACK: They play we pay. They play we play. They play we pay. COMMENTARY: Grey power dominates all the parties and sets the political agenda. Following years of pressure, the older population have managed to re-instate the link between pensions and earnings. The rest of the population have to pay for it in tax rises. The young, burdened by debt and unable to get a foot on the property ladder are bearing the brunt. After years of apathy, they’re fighting back. COMMENTARY: Like most baby boomers in 2024, Caroline Spencer lives alone. She retired at sixty five. A rising state pension is starting to compensate for her falling private pension. And by releasing some of the equity in her home, she now has a comfortable life style. ELIZABETH: Hey, you look beautiful. Fantastic. CAROLINE: It’s what’s inside that’s the problem. ELIZABETH: No, you look great. When I look in the mirror I feel I’m being punished for a crime I didn’t commit. CAROLINE: Now Lizzie, sixty five is the new forty, life begins at forty. And you know what you’ve got to do. ELIZABETH: You’ve decided then? CAROLINE: Decided what? ELIZABETH: Oh come on. CAROLINE: You’ll just have to wait and see. TELESALES PERSON: Good morning Rejuvenate. Can I help you. ALL TOGETHER MAN: And how old are you. MAN: Seventy five. MAN: Yes, your age is fifty sixty, yes that’s right. WOMAN: Good morning. COMMENTARY: Not all of the old of 2024 live comfortably. Many are forced to work in to their 70s and 80s. MAN: (mumbles) COMMENTARY: The government’s policy of encouraging them not to depend on the state for their pension backfired. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”: We’ve seen the risk in recent years of declining equity markets, and so the risk really from the government’s point of view is that though the financial markets don’t deliver the returns, and people turn back to the State and say, please help us in our hour need. MAN: Hello, welcome to Rejuvanate. The way back. Please submit your national ID record and number. Thank you COMMENTARY: Despite the improving state pension of 2024, many are still unable to retire because they misjudged the property market. Back in 2004, the value of people’s homes was three thousand billion pounds. More than double the total value of all pension funds. But some jumped on the property band wagon too late to realise their dream of a comfortable retirement. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission): If the next generation is significantly smaller than the present generation, then that generation, the baby boom generation will be trying to sell those houses to a smaller next generation, so there is at least a possibility that will, there will be a period where house prices will fall, or certainly, no go up in the way that they have in the past. ADVERT: It’s changed my life. I never felt old, but I was living in an old person’s body. Rejuvenate changed everything. I look better. I feel better. I am better. JACK: Mum. What the hell are you doing with this. CAROLINE: What. JACK: That promo. CAROLINE: I’m thinking about it. JACK: You’re, thinking about it. CAROLINE: Erm. JACK: You’re thinking about what exactly. Mum, you look fine. Why do you want to get yourself pumped full of chemicals. CAROLINE: I just want to look in the mirror and like what I see. I thought you might be pleased. JACK: No, this isn’t the way. We’re the ones who have to pay for this. I have to pay for this. CAROLINE: What are you talking about. It’s my life. JACK: Well you enjoy it then. CAROLINE: Jack. Jack. COMMENTARY: Doctor Robert Vine is the public face of the anti-ageing treatment, Rejuvanate. He’s a consultant. He splits his time between the NHS and a private practice. Now, controversially, he’s making Rejuvanate available on the NHS. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory): Demand for anti-ageing treatment is going to become greater and greater. Currently boomers demand things like fertility treatment on the National Health, which a generation ago would have seemed quite odd. In the generation hence, they are going to start demanding beauty procedures as part of a national health scheme. COMMENTARY: In 2024, the NHS is struggling under the burden of an explosion in the numbers of old people. Under pressure from the demands of an older population health care spending has risen far higher than governments have predicted. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”): It’s around that time that we have the big increase in the number of sixty five year olds as the baby boomers retire. So we can see the potential for even bigger increases. On average someone who’s sixty five or over costs about four times as much as someone younger than sixty five. You only have to think about hip replacements, cataracts, all the various repairs that are done to try to withstand the ravages of ageing. COMMENTARY: In 2004, not everyone had been so pessimistic. Back then, studies show that the older the age at which people died, the less the cost. So paradoxically, one view was that an ageing society could save the NHS money. PHIL MULLAN (Author “The Imaginary Time Bomb”): The sort of causes of earlier deaths, like road traffic accidents are which are more demanding on health resources. There’s more need for intensive health care and so on. Whereas in contrast, if one dies at a later age, in your 80s or 90s from diseases which are more generally associated with old age, say heart disease or stroke or cancer, then the amount of intensive health care is less. COMMENTARY: In 2024 some NHS costs have been kept down because of the baby boomers healthy life style. They’ve continued to exercise, eat healthily and smoke less than other generations. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory): They’re the first generation concerned about maintaining their wellness rather than looking at issues when they get ill. So in twenty years time you’re going to find a health system that isn’t about illness maintenance, it is going to be about wellness management. And that’s a hugely different concept to grapple with than the kind of health service we’re dealing with today. COMMENTARY: But in 2024 it’s this very desire among baby boomers to be fit and healthy which is increasing health care costs. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”) The baby boomers will be very demanding about the health care that they want. They’ll want to be as fit and as young as possible. They’ll want not just hip replacements, they’ll want every sort of replacement. And they’ll be the original bionic generation. DOCTOR: Mr Wilson. MR WILSON: That’s right. DOCTOR: How are you today? MR WILSON: Fine thank you. COMMENTARY: And the direct cost to the health service is only part of the problem. DOCTOR: Now, you can go home to-day. MR WILSON: Right. DOCTOR: Is there anyone there to look after you. MR WILSON: No, I’m afraid not. COMMENTARY: In 2024, the increased break-down of family life has meant that many old people can no longer be looked after at home by friends and relatives. The alternative has always been expensive. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”): People reaching the age of sixty five, there’s a one in three chance if you’re a CAROLINE, of ending up in residential care. One in five chance if you’re a man, and the bills are very expensive. Looking forward there are going to be more people potentially requiring this and so the bills will go up, and so there will be demands really for the State to come up and pick up more of that bill. COMMENTARY: In Scotland, the State picked up some of this bill from as early as 2002. At first, England and Wales resisted because of the cost. But in 2024 they have caved in. CHLOE: A new kind of politics. JACK: Yeah, it’s got this really amazing twist where everyone gets treated fairly. BILL: Jack, you do realise you’re talking about fighting and demonstrating against our own parents. JACK: Yes, I am. How much money have you got in your bank account. JACK: What about you. CHLOE: Yeah. Like I’m going to answer that. JACK: What’s, what’s the highest amount you’ve ever had in the bank. BILL: All right, well for me, it’s less than zero but I’m always skint; so what’s your point. JACK: Oh no, that’s a wonderful life you’ve got to look forward to. All of us in debt, to fund a State, run by pensioners for pensioners. And to cap it all, now they’re getting make-overs on the NHS. COMMENTARY: At the end of the 20th century, Britain’s increasing bills were met by economic growth. PHIL MULLAN (Author “The Imaginary Time Bomb) Productivity increases means that the whole of society can become more wealthy and prosperous. It is quite possible to generate enough wealth, so that those who are working do not have to make sacrifices, do not have to cut their own living standards in order to provide for others; so we can pay more taxes, and still have more to look after ourselves and our families. COMMENTARY: Although the economy is still growing in 2024, the rate of growth has slowed. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”) We’ll have fewer people working; so overall economic growth will decline and the prospects of productivity growth are probably gloomier rather than more optimistic, more upbeat because an ageing population tends to be less enterprising. COMMENTARY: So in 2024, funding pensions, the NHS and care of the elderly has meant taxes on income have had to rise by 80%. Among the young, news of a fight back is spreading. PROF JAMES SEFTON (Nat Inst of Economic & Social Research) The government estimate that income tax will only have to rise by one or two ‘p’ in the pound before 2024 if we are to balance the budget. However one must look at the assumptions underlying these projections. Firstly, is it realistic to expect that pensions, as a share of GDP will remain constant, especially when a greater proportion of our population become retirees. Also, is it realistic to expect that after 2010, health care spending will fall to rates of growth that we have never seen historically. COMMENTARY: The huge tax rise of 2024 could have been much smaller but it required tough decisions. It meant slowing down the rise in spending on pensions and healthcare. But under pressure from the grey lobby, governments have failed to act. PROF JAMES SEFTON (Nat Inst Of Economic & Social Research) If we assume that pensions carry on rising at 2% per year per capita which is the rate that they have gone up in the last twelve years and health expenditure carries on rising at 3.5% per capita, per year, then we could see the tax on our income and wages rise from about 30p, 10p on national insurance, about 20p on income tax, rise to about 50, 55p by 2024. COMMENTARY: This tax rise of around 80% was unavoidable by 2024 simply because governments made no change to the spending levels of 2004. PROF LAURENCE KOTLIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generational Storm”): When taxes get sky high people start avoiding them they even start leaving the country the country and tax revenues actually fall and the government can’t pay its bills, it starts printing money, it starts trying to borrow more, interest rates go sky high, inflation takes off, and you have economic melt down. And that scenario is coming for the UK as well as other developed countries. JACK: Ready mate? MAN: It’s a silly idea Jack, let’s just go home. Come on, let’s go home. NEWSCASTER: The doctor behind a controversial anti ageing treatment has said he won’t be intimidated, following acts of vandalism against him. Doctor Robert Vine has been under attack from protestors for his role in making the Rejuvan age treatment available on the NHS. DOCTOR ROBERT VINE: What we offer is a legitimate and approved medical treatment, which is helping many many people lead richer lives. This or any other kind of mindless behaviour will not defect us on the important work that we are doing. Thank you. COMMENTARY: In 2024 everyone is chasing the grey pound. Baby boomers, the inventors of consumerism are still big spenders. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory) Your currently boomers and people in their 50s own 70% of the nation’s wealth. You know in twenty years time they will own 85 to 90% of the disposable income of people in the UK. VOICE OVER:RADIO: Planners real-drive, the car that puts you back in control. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory) So what you will see are advertising campaigns, all targeting this group that hitherto just didn’t figure in how we saw things being sold to us. VOICE OVER: RADIO: Do you have fond memories of turning a steering wheel and applying the brakes. Do you dream of pressing your foot hard down on a manual accelerator. ELDERLY WOMAN - ADVERT: You lot to-day, it’s all work work work. You don’t have time for lunch, time for hobbies, time for your friends. MARTIN RAYMOND (The Future Laboratory) Imagine instead of seeing a field of young people in our campaigns, you see people over seventy and eighties, with tans and fast cars, on the beach, dancing, partying, all of the things we associated with youth, have suddenly become the things that we’ll associate with people over 70. VOICE OVER: RADIO: Do you want to be back in control, back in the driver’s seat, just like it used to be. Let us put you right there. Erm, you can almost smell the petrol. Bi-focal windscreens and predictive steering option. COMMENTARY: In 2024 most young people don’t vote. They don’t see the point. They can never hope to make their views felt at the ballot box, they will always be in a minority. CHET TREMMEL (Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations) In Germany in forty years, there will be twice as many people over sixty than people below twenty. And that’s why we want to lower the voting age, first to sixteen and then to zero because everybody who is able to express his will to vote, even if he is or she is eight or nine year old, should have the possibility to vote. PROF. LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Living Generation Storm”) We are systematically taking from young and future generations without letting them have any voice in this and also while pretending it’s not happening. COMMENTARY: But the young are waking up. JACK: Look we did what we did, Shut up and get on with it or you can quit like the others. TOM: No. Look, I just think it’s a bit weird. What do I say to my parents when they find out. What do I tell them. JACK: Just tell them the truth. Maybe they want to help us out. They don’t have to steal from us Tom. It’s a whole new politics. TOM: Well you must … JACK: Leave it. Yeah. I’ll talk to you tomorrow all right. TOM: But …. COMMENTARY: Just as their grandparents discovered Marx, some have discovered generational accounting. PROF LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm”) I co-invented generational accounting because I thought it was very important to understand as an economist, and also as a parent, what’s going to happen to the next generation. And when we did the numbers for the US, I was really shocked because they show that my kids and other people’s kids are going to face tax rates that are twice as high as the rates we now face. PROF JAMES SEFTON (Nat Int of Economic & Social Research) Generational accounting has revealed in the UK that under some reasonable set of assumptions, we could be handing over very large debts to our children of the region of a 100 and 150% of GDP. Now I don’t think any reasonable person would consider that this is a fair or just policy. STUDENTS ON MARCH: We say fight back … We say fight back … COMMENTARY: The first signs of a generational conflict appeared in Britain in 2003 when students protested at the debts they must bear for their university education. PROF LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm”) The governments are going broke and as they go broke they’re going to be looking for every penny they can get, where ever they can get it. A good example here is the top-up fees that are being charged now to university students. Their parents got a free education, so they’re protesting and this is just the beginning of a conflict that’s going to be coming between the kids and the adults. COMMENTARY: In 2004, pensioners were protesting too about the level of their pensions and the rise in council tax bills. JOHN SWINBURNE MSP (Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party) We are going to fight for our rights and we’ll put the fear of death in to every political party. We represent one quarter of the electorate and by 2024, the balance of power will be in the hands of senior citizens, and we will be able to dictate policies which will be relevant to them and to their benefit. PROF LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author, “The Living Generation Storm”) If you look at the number of old people that we’re going to have to take care of in the future, and if you look at the bills that our kids are going to have to pay, anybody that doesn’t think there’s a generational storm and a big generational war coming, must be on Prozac. COMMENTARY: There are choices we can make that might lessen the force of the generational storm. NEWSCASTER: The Home Secretary has said he will leave the monthly immigration quota unchanged for the third month in a row. The CBI called his decision disappointing, and said it would damage the economy. The under of immigrants entering the country last year reached 250,000. COMMENTARY: Since the 1990s immigration has been rising but not fast enough to make up for the shortage of young workers in 2024. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) The problem is that you need very large numbers of immigrants and you need them to be increasing numbers over time because those people in themselves grow old and therefore need even more numbers of immigrants to support them. And so in order to solve the problem entirely by immigration, you would have to take the population of Britain from 60 million to-day to eight five million or something of that order of magnitude by 2050 and then keep increasing it by the same percentage increase every fifty years, ever there after. COMMENTARY: In 2024, only a few parts of the world have a high enough birth rate to allow them to provide young workers. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) The vast majority of those immigrants would come from Africa and Western Asia, countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, Iraq, countries where we have a lot of the concentration of failed states and some of the poorest states in the world. And that probably would increase the integration challenge. COMMENTARY: Even if greatly increased immigration can be made politically acceptable, its effect will be far-reaching, Britain will become over-crowded, and that could have a dramatic impact on the environment. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) Either we now want to get the environmental benefits of stable populations but with the problems that that creates to pension systems or we want to solve our pension system crisis with immigration or higher birth-rates but at the expense of increasing congestion and pollution and environmental problems and that really is a fundamental choice that society now faces. VIDEO: VOICE OVE: It’s the woman who carries the baby. In the time it takes for a mother to produce one child, a man can father hundreds of them. COMMENTARY: In 2024, the government is trying to find ways to raise the birth rate. If they can produce enough young workers, perhaps generational conflict can be avoided. TEACHER: Okay, let’s stop it there. The point is you all have choices. What the film is trying to say in a rather unsubtle way is that people of your age, should be having children younger for the future good of the country. Lots of children; so what do we think about that. SIX FORMER: I don’t want to have an education and then not be able to do anything with it. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) Wherever you have three conditions; economic prosperity, a high level of female literacy and a supply of contraceptives, which is legal and reasonably cheap, you get a fall in birth rates, down to and below replacement levels. SIX FORMER - woman: It’s making us revert to the role that we had kind of hundreds of years ago. SIX FORMER - man: It’s not, it’s not asking us you to have something like a whole herd of ten children, just one or two more than you would usually. COMMENTARY: The government of 2024 want women to have at least two children each, in order to raise the birth rate to replacement level. TEACHER: If you have your children younger, then it gives you plenty of time to have a fulfilling career after that. SIX FORMER: But children become part of your life, and so you can’t put in those extra hours at the office because you need to go home and feed your kids. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”) The difficulty is in convincing younger women in the future is because they’re going to be emerging from University, where apparently 50% will be attending, laden down with debt. They’ll obviously be anxious to capitalise on that education as swiftly as possible, and in addition, they’ll be paying higher taxes to support the older generation; so the proposal although a sensible one, doesn’t seem to have much chance of succeeding. SIX FORMER: Say you have those children, with all the money that’s now going in to the, the health service, there’s going to be absolutely no money for pre-school, for child care, and there’s going to be ….. COMMENTARY: In 2024, the sexual liberation the baby boomers fought so hard for is under threat from the drive to raise the birth rate. SIX FORMER: You’re piling the whole responsibility of society on women. ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission) What is absolutely clear is that you don’t achieve that by demanding of women traditional social roles of just looking after children. We have the highest birth rates where we make it easiest for women to combine work and family life. SIX FORMER: But you were chosen to have children. TEACHER: Right, well that’s it. Just one parting thought, I suppose in the past someone as influential as me would be expected to say something like, if you can’t be good then at least be careful. Now I’m expected to say, have fun. CHET TREMMEL (Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations) We have rising life expectancy and falling birth rates and there’s nothing inherently bad in that situation, but we have to adapt to it. But the necessary reforms are blocked by the old generation of today because … they might lose their privileges, and this is at the expense of my generation. PROF LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm”. The issue of how we’re going to take care of our kids in the future is the great moral question of our generation. Our parents fought World War 2, they made sure that we were safe and that we had a good economy. We don’t want to be leaving our kids with a damaged economy and sky high tax rates. CHET TREMMEL (Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations) We are not going to keep quiet when a band of pampered pensions steal the future from us. YOUTHS: … we pay, they play ….. PROFESSOR LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm”) I would hope that our kids will start standing up for their rights and that the adults will start acting like adults, and start worrying about the next generation. CAROLINE: What’s going on out there. DOCTOR: Oh, don’t worry. It’s nothing to worry about just a protest group. Anne Marie, can you make sure security are dealing with this. It’s just too many young people with too much free time on their hands. DOCTOR: I’m just using a solution that will clean some of your skin cells and pores. CAROLINE: Oh, it stings a bit. DOCTOR: Yes, it’s meant to do that. Now do you have a holiday plan this year. CAROLINE: This is my holiday. DOCTOR: Quite. YOUTH: (repeat) We pay, they play. We pay, they play …. COMMENTARY: The young of 2024 feel their lives have been sacrificed for the old. A protest is about debt and tax. It’s about the dominance of their elders and a rise in state pension. It’s about the pressure on the young to have children. Their protest is against the medical advances which are improving the lives of older people, but which are sucking resources from an over-burdened NHS. YOUTH DEMO: We pay, they play, we pay they play … PROF LAURENCE KOLTIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generation Storm) We like to think that the generational storm is ten, twenty years down the road, but every year we wait to address the problem, the problem gets much worse and from one day to the next, the financial markets are going to realise this. And that’s when the financial melt down is going to begin. (VISUALS WITH SX) NEWSCASTER: The government has said it will listen to the legitimate concerns of young people following yesterday’s protests but that it won’t be bullied in to changing its policy on tax and pensions. NEWSCASTER: Police have arrested a twenty four year old man in connection with a flash mobbing incident at North End Hospital in London, against the controversial anti ageing treatment which is offered to patients there. NEWSCASTER: The Mother of all battles, vandalism, demonstration and destruction, as the Mother’s Day protest turned nasty. What can now be done to avoid a full blown conflict between the generations. PROF LAURENCE KOTLIKOFF (Author “The Coming Generational Storm) There’s no way we’re going to avoid a generational storm, but we can get out of its direct path. But to do that we’re going to have some new ideas, we’re going to have to have some real statesmanship, and we’re going to have to have a change in attitude. And attitudinal change is the toughest thing of all. PROF JAMES SEFTON (Nat Inst of Economic & Social Research) There are various possible measures, the most obvious being that we work longer. We will retire later. The second is that we must make more provision for our retirement and the third is I think inevitable, that there will be some means testing on health care benefits. PHIL MLULLAN (Author “The Imaginary Time Bomb”) There should be no fixed age of retirement. It should be a voluntary, gradual process, rather than sudden and compulsory, which is the way it is too much these days. PAUL WALLACE (Author “Agequake”) If people want to retire early, then of course they have to expect that their benefits will be lower and conversely, if you want to work on then you should expect to get more income in retirement. PHIL MULLAN (Author “The Imaginary Time Bomb) Conditions should be made easier for people to work later. We’re going to be fitter and healthier in our older ages, many of us are going to want to work longer; so rather than ageing being a burden for society, in fact ageing is an opportunity which can be used to bring about an even more prosperous society for all of us. COMMENTARY: Which way will it go. It will be the baby boomers, the generation now in their 40s and 50s who must decide. ROSIE BOYCOTT (Writer and Broadcaster) Baby boomers have been campaigning for change since the 1960s; so if the politicians or anyone else think that at some magic moment the baby boomers are all going to put on their bedroom slippers and sit in front of the fire, and say it’s over, they have got another thing coming. MAN: Hello, well come to Rejuvanate, they way back. ROSIE BOYCOTT (Writer And Broadcaster) People are going to carry on reinventing themselves, taking up new professions in order to keep contributing towards the tax system. CALL CENTRE MAN: All calls are monitored for quality purposes, are you happy to proceed. ROSIE BOYCOTT (Writer And Broadcaster) We will change the attitudes towards old age in this country, and we’ll change them for the better. CALL CENTRE MAN: Thank you for your inquiry, please key in your national ID record and number. Thank you Mrs Brown. FILM ENDS COMMENTARY: You can comment on tonight’s film and find further information on the issues raised on our web site at WWW.BBC.CO.UK/IF ?? ?? ?? ?? 1