This is clear from a consideration of the 2005 manifestos. That election was notable for the fact that the major political parties had few explicit promises. However, there were particular, and sometimes bizarre, pledges to older people. These included proposals to exempt older people from specific taxes; to provide the old - whether poor or not - with free bus travel; to relink pensions to earnings; and for government to pay more towards long-term care.

More generally, in the recent past, there has been a significant redirection of government spending from the young to the old. The young have seen a reduction in support for higher education and the old much higher welfare benefits. In addition, recent changes to state pension rules will remove contracted-out National Insurance rebates from young people, who are currently able to save the money from the rebates in private pension vehicles: the resources will be redirected towards paying higher pensions to those people who are already retired. All this is on top of the substantial increases in spending on the NHS - something that mainly benefits the elderly. Between 1997 and 2010 spending will have tripled, with the proportion of national income spent on the NHS increasing by about 50 per cent.

Changes to taxation have also hit the young hardest. Married couples' allowances were removed for young people but not for older people; and older people have much higher personal tax allowances. When the married couples' allowance was abolished by Gordon Brown in 2000, the change was deliberately designed to discriminate against the young and the allowance was kept for older people. There can be no justification for keeping the allowance for older people, and the move was simply a sop to grey voters.