Why the generation gap is a myth

When asked to fill in my nationality – and when the option’s available – I always specify ‘English’. Partly because I don’t have an ounce of Scottish or Welsh blood, but mostly because the very name ‘United Kingdom’ has lost all meaning. We are disunited. Brexit v Remain, North v South, Corbyn v Everyone. And – we are informed by those in the know – Old v Young.

The Brexit vote appeared to confirm what moaning millennials have long believed: that the baby boomers had it all and squandered it on themselves, leaving the young to fight to the death for a ratty bedsit in Walthamstow. How dare the wrinklies vote to leave the EU when they’ll all be dead soon?

Columnists, economists and sociologists talk about the baby-boomers with their free universities and cheap mortgages: this lucky post-war generation, who invented pop and teenagers, believed they could change the world.