So, as Brexit continues to obsess the
Westminster class and the markets
scrutinise the UK economy with brutal
scepticism, it is important not to lose sight of
the main question of the summer. Namely:
how old is too old to subscribe to GQ?
At what age are you obliged to hang up
your Gucci suit, box away your limited edition
Bowie Vans and accept that your Baume
Small Second is a watch for millennials, not
old codgers?
And the excellent news is: never. Wear
what you like, do what you like, cut a dash.
As bumpy a ride as the first quarter of the
21st century is undoubtedly proving, one of
its under-reported revolutions has been the
near-abolition of old age.
Look, I’m not saying that your body won’t
continue to age, that you’ll produce the same
amount of testosterone as you did when you
were 25, that you won’t need laser eye treat-
ment or hemiarthroplasty for the hips you’ve
worn out on the piste or the tennis courts.
But the old three-act drama – youth, work
and pensioned leisure – is emphatically over.
It’s not just that life expectancy is increasing
(as a global average, by five-and-a-half years
between 2000 and 2016). The transformation
of diet, exercise and medicine in the developed
world means we are not only living longer, butopportunity to try new things, invest our
financial and social capital, do good and live
well. In this account, Sir Mick Jagger – still
dancing like a rock god Nijinsky at 76 – is no
longer the outlier but the avatar of a new way
of growing old that was literally inconceivable
when The Rolling Stones were formed. Honoré
tracks down extraordinary people all over the
world – from Bangkok to Toronto to Lebanon- who are defying the dreary path of “senior
life” paved by previous generations.
What’s the catch? The catch is that, as
The Streets warned us, “a grand don’t come
for free” – and neither does a transformation
in demography and living habits. More people
living longer means just about every aspect
of our social fabric will change.
S
ome of the adjustment will be a matter
of civilised negotiation. How to make use of
the 75-year-old employee who wants to
make way for someone younger but would
like to stay involved in the enterprise? How
to give older people a real opportunity to
keep studying?
But some of the consequences will be
straightforwardly fiscal. More people,
needing more housing, more health care and
(crucially) more social care. The cost will be
huge and dancing round this core social fact
is deeply irresponsible.
No political party has even begun to
address this problem: when Theresa May
dipped her toe in the water of social care
reform in the 2017 election campaign, she
was forced into retreat in days. During the
Tory-Lib Dem coalition, George Osborne sug-
gested a mansion tax: the idea was slapped
down by David Cameron.
But Osborne was right. There is no question
that to meet the future needs of public provi-
sion we are going to have to start taxing wealth
more heavily, through higher inheritance tax,
stamp duty, a mansion tax or all three.
Needless to say, this will not be popular.
For decades, we have been told that we
inhabit a “property-owning democracy” in
which wealth “cascades down the genera-
tions”. But – just as we must reduce carbon
emissions, and fast – so we will have to grow
used to a new relationship with our assets if
the basic social fabric is to survive. This is
not Corbynite socialism. It is the necessary
evolution of any society that wants to func-
tion and survive.
But keep your eyes on the prize. You’re
going to live longer, and better, and be able to
grow old as disgracefully as you wish. The old
rules are being torn up. Anything is possible.
And you can read GQ with pride and swagger
for the rest of your life. What’s not to like? GStory by Matthew d’AnconaWestminster might be on life support, but the good news is it has
never been easier to live long and prosperouslyRelax... we’re ingreat shapePoliticsliving well as we age. The old stereotype of the
stooped sixtysomething in slippers and a cardi-
gan is no longer a reflection of reality.
Central to this is the rolling abolition or
constraint of previously catastrophic illness.
Visit the state-of-the-art labs of professor
Molly Stevens at Imperial College London
and you’ll realise how close we really are to
a range of astonishing breakthroughs that
will – for instance – transform even the worst
cancers into a chronic, treatable condition
(like diabetes) rather than a death sentence.
I recently met a senior oncologist whose
work is now so dependent upon computer
power that he describes himself as an “algo-
rithmist”. Even Alzheimer’s, the most defiant
of age-related illnesses, is starting to yield to
the assault of entrepreneurial researchers.
If you need persuading, pack Carl Honoré’s
recent book, Bolder: Making The Most Of Our
Longer Lives (Simon & Schuster, £16.99), in
your holiday holdall. A sensation when he
spoke about “slow living” for TED in 2007,
Honoré has now turned his attention to the
gap between an obsolete ageist culture –
one that assumes “older” means “worse”,
“weaker” and “out-of-touch” – with the
reality he encountered in his research.
His point is that ageing is no longer a
matter of damage limitation but a glorious09-19DropMusic.indd 137 09/07/2019 14:49
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