Living longer, living more miserably
The good news is, we’re all living longer; the bad news is, we’ll be miserable
The ideological dimension to life expectancy
The fact that we are living longer is down to a generally improved awareness among the population as to what constitutes good health, plus perhaps the vivifying effect of devising new and ever more imaginative ways to circumvent the smoking ban. However, as is usually the case, the official good news is little more than a piece of tarpaulin hastily dragged over the maw of a catastrophe, to use a somewhat awkward metaphor. The population of Britain currently stands at about 60 million people; within a quarter of a century (rather more quickly, by my estimation) there will be 70 million people living here. An enormous increase, utterly unprecedented across our 2,000 years of history. And most of that increase will be seen in the south-east of England (an area which has itself expanded, politically, to encompass a goodly portion of the south-west and what used to be called the South Midlands). You may think that the south-east is crowded already, as you try desperately to kick some pensioner out of the way in order to cram yourself on to a rush-hour train (which, because of congestion, will be 43 minutes late), or as you try to scrape together enough cash to buy a one-bed flat in a part of London where you are lucky if you are merely stabbed rather than shot. But it is nothing. We will soon be living a little like they lived in that scary 1970s sci-film Soylent Green, where everybody had one square metre of living room and for food they boiled down the corpses of the recently dead and made it into a sort of biscuit, shaped like Malted Milks.
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Arthur
October 25th, 2007 4:11pmRod, Blame dear old clunking fist himself. The only way to get the GDP figures up is to cram ever more people in. I'd love to see Gordon's record in GDP per head....
Peter Arnold
October 25th, 2007 4:34pmExactly - the way we seem to be walking into such a catastrophy over immigration is unbelievable. But as no major party will take a firm line on reducing immigration - what can we do?
Dwight Vandryver
October 25th, 2007 8:42pmAbsolutely correct. And if you were not well off in your working life and don't have a gilt-edged pension as MPs do, you will live those extra years in semi-poverty, unable to do more than just exist. Best to live life to the full while you can and forget the joy of extended longevity!