One of the most important things that this book could achieve would be to get the baby boomers to think about their obligations to future generations. Part of the problem in our society is that we've become incredibly sensitive to differences of income and opportunity within a cohort, and almost completely blind to differences of income and opportunity between different age-groups. So if I just get people to think that way, that itself is progress.

FF: But, do you have a ten-point plan in your head? Or will we have to wait until 6 May?

DW: Actually, you can pull politicians together, and the burden on future generations, the burden of government debt, is the most powerful single argument for getting public expenditure and borrowing under control.

FF: But there is no evidence to support your assertion that the baby boomers are careless about that. Everything from the polls suggests that they actually want tough action quickly, which means that they would be paying the debt, or at least some of it, rather than passing all of it over to succeeding generations.

DW: Some of the caricatures of the book have been that I'm attacking the baby boomers' motives, but I make no judgment about motive. It is possible that this is just a consequence of being a big generation, and it's very possible that some of the things that have happened, like the arrival of China and India in the global trading system, are entirely matters of chance. Their arrival in the global trading system — and you, Frank, have spoken about this — has massively affected the earning potential of the younger generation of British people, especially the ones who sadly are not that well educated or qualified. That wasn't a plot by the baby boomers, it's just something that happened. 

It is clear that, partly because of their size, partly because of the way they changed British society as they came through it in the Sixties, consequences have followed for future generations. But I'm rather with Frank: I do think it's possible to appeal to their better natures, to do things in the future. Indeed at several points in the book, I offer evidence that people are very susceptible to such an argument. Imagine people running a forestry business, and you give them three reasons for not cutting down trees in a woodland this year. First, because if you don't cut the trees down the local community can then enjoy the woodland. How much weight do they attach to that? Not that much. Secondly, you say, don't cut the trees down because if you keep them for the future you can make even more profit for your company in the long run. Some attach weight to that, but not much. However, if you say, don't cut the trees down because the only reason we've got this woodland is because previous generations have refrained from cutting the trees down, and you must not cut the trees down so that future generations can enjoy it — that argument has far more power in affecting behaviour than the other two. That is what studies of popular attitudes reveal. So I'm with Frank in that you can appeal to their better natures.

FF: But can I pin some of the political consequences onto you, because baby boomers could read the book and feel they were in the dock? I'm defending them by saying there's no evidence that they took any action to land themselves in this privileged position. You, as a politician belonging to a party, helped entrench that. One example is the attack on occupational pensions, which, although they might have endured a more sustained attack under Gordon Brown, began under Margaret Thatcher. When you were at the think tank in Number 10, we started saying that employers could have pension contribution holidays, which, in fact, attack part of inter-generational savings.  

Similarly, it was the Conservative government that encouraged people to make a quick buck, by stripping out the mutuality of building societies and so on. These were then going to become great banks of the future — I don't think a single one of those banks has survived. We would have a different financial landscape if we'd kept building societies.