Six taboos that baby boomers avoid thinking about

With an election looming, UK politicians are once again courting the all-important over-55s with income-, pension- and estate-friendly policies

Kevin Spacey, looking greyer and paunchier as President Underwood in the third series of House of Cards, shocked Democratic party leaders when he told them a plan to create 10m jobs must be paid for with dramatic reductions in benefits, especially for the old.

As usual, it was hard to tell if the move was a genuine tilt at a social democratic legacy or yet another tactic in Underwood's never-ending scramble for survival. Taking him at his word, Underwood's jobs plan is a return of fire in the long battle of the generations, with the fictional president attacking better-off baby boomers on behalf of blue collar families and the young.