This is an annual event, isn't it? After twelve months of riffing endlessly on the themes of obesity epidemics, tobacco pandemics and alcohol panics, there is always one slow news day after Christmas—usually coinciding with the new life expectancy figures coming out—when the truth shows its face. And the truth is that the real threat to the NHS is that the nation will soon look like the cast of
Cocoon.
From the
BBC:
Leaving aside the very speculative nature of the figures—and leaving aside the Beeb's innumeracy (17% is much closer to 1 in 6 than 1 in 5)—the basic premise is, of course, solid. We are the longest living people in history and I hereby make it my 2011 resolution to use the graphic above every time some idiot scurrilously claims that "
this generation will die before their parents".
