Working Wrinklies, Matching Ministers

Daveybloke the Cuddly Conservative is planning to woo the grey vote with an address to Age Concern. "The fact is we are an old country - with our best years ahead of us. That is how I see Britain - and it is how I think older people see themselves". As usual, Daveybloke's acquaintances among the group he is courting seem to be the more optimistic ones. "We have certain cultural and economic assumptions which make us think about older people in terms of the cost, not the potential benefit they represent." There is profit in old people, if only the resource can be properly exploited.

Daveybloke lays out the conventional wisdom: "The conventional wisdom goes like this. The economy is made up of fit younger people working at full stretch. They produce the national wealth. The wealth pays for healthcare. The healthcare helps people live longer. In fact, in many ways, it is the other way around." Daveybloke turns the conventional wisdom on its head: "There is some fascinating research which turns the conventional wisdom on its head" - well, if it fascinates Daveybloke it must be true - "longevity itself can produce wealth", much as anti-terrorism can produce values, I suppose.

"We have traditionally thought that we need to grow our GDP in order to pay for our ageing society", as is clear from the Conservatives' record of investment in pensions, cold-weather fuel payments and so forth, at the expense of the wider economy and particularly the ever-downtrodden business community. "In fact, our ageing society can help our GDP to grow", always provided that such trivialities as housing and healthcare do not cost more than the longevitous can, in good conscience, contribute.

Elsewhere, the shadow foreign secretary has been displaying the qualities of imagination and independence which brought him such brilliant results as leader of the Conservative Party. He has called on the Government to "undertake a thorough reassessment of its strategy in Iraq", preferably one that mirrors and/or matches the one going on in Washington. Even the timing should be carefully choreographed: ministers should "spell out candidly the Government's plans for Iraq at the same time as former US Secretary of State James Baker releases his review of American options, said Mr Hague", who also helpfully advised the Government to work towards withdrawal of British troops "sooner rather than later" while warning against an "over-hasty pullout, which he said could destabilise the administration in Baghdad", despite that administration's present rocklike solidity.