Why on earth did The Spectator support Brexit?

The temperature has hit 40°C in Crete, where I am writing this, and although there have been no fires, nothing is quite how it ought to be. I can’t work out whether this is a great opportunity to get a tan or, effectively, the end of the world. My 60-year-old taxi driver tells me that unfeasibly hot summers were a regular occurrence when he was young and that there’s nothing to worry about. But, he adds, he’ll be dead soon anyway so why should he care?

Right or wrong, this is the paradox at the heart of the climate change debate. Older people, who could be held responsible for the destruction of the planet, don’t need to worry. And young people, who have so much more to lose, don’t really have a say. We invented plastic. They live with it. The anger aimed at two peers elected when they are either side of 30 and the scorn directed at a new MP aged just 25 are misplaced. We have to share power with young people. They’re the ones looking the right way.

Ever since the arrival of my first grandson – Leander Horowitz (the name is Greek: ‘lion man’), born one month ago – I’ve been thinking a lot about old age. There’s something unsettling about becoming a ‘Pappous’, if that’s what I must call myself. I disliked all my grandparents, who seemed ancient and disconnected. I even wrote a book about one of them – ‘Granny’ – a horrible woman who, following an argument with one of her sons, decided not to speak to him again for 25 years. Is Leander going to find me as otherworldly as I found them? Anyway, I’ve already decided on one rule.