What better antidote to Russell Brand’s nonsense than the man who sang Anarchy in the UK? “Bumhole” is what John Lydon calls Brand for telling young people not to vote. “It’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”

As I was interviewing him for a Guardian video, he gave that famous Johnny Rotten glare. “The likes of Russell Brand coming along and saying something so damn ignorant is just spoonfeeding it to them” – them, the powerful. “A hundred years ago who could vote here? To have that so easily, so flippantly ignored in that lazy-arsed way, in that ‘I take drugs and tell not very funny jokes’ way, it’s very poor. You have to vote, you have to make a change. You’re given lousy options, yes, but better than nothing at all.”

He would agree with Brand about the need to organise, but blasts him on the vote. “If you’re not voting, not contributing, you’re demanding to be ignored. Not very smart at all. You don’t get nothing because you’ve done nothing. Stand up and be counted, make your voice heard or else you’re just going to fade into insignificance. You can see it, can’t you!” he says, leering into the camera.



‘A hundred years ago who could vote here? To have that so easily, so flippantly ignored in that lazy-arsed way, in that ‘I take drugs and tell not very funny jokes’ way, it’s very poor.’ Photograph: Matt Kent/Redferns via Getty Images

Never mind the bollocks, the facts on the ground tell the story. The young don’t vote, the old do – so the old get everything, protected from the cuts, rewarded time and again for their assiduous ballot box dominance. Gerontocracy is here: in 2010 many more 73-year-olds voted than 18-year-olds, and 45-year-olds had 84% more voting power than those aged 18. Only half of 18- to 24-year-olds are registered to vote, compared with 90% of 55- to 64-year-olds, and the new individual voter registration will make that worse.

The Intergenerational Foundation tracks the widening divide in everything from the young losing free bus passes while the old keep theirs; paying for degrees that the old had for free; sky-high rents and no chance of owning; McJobs for graduates who will pay for better pensions and care than they can expect for themselves. Brand may think it’s cool, but where in all that is the reward for the young in boycotting the ballot box?

Has Lydon always voted? “Yes.” Ever voted Conservative? “No.” He jokes about the pallid Lib Dems. Talking about Ukip’s appropriation of disenfranchised older working-class men, he says, “Ah, morons! Get smart. Find out who’s manipulating you. I did. What’s wrong with you? Hello, members of the working class, have a sense of unity”, and rails against those ignoring class identity. As it happens, 1977, the year the Sex Pistols crashed on to the scene, was the most equal year in British history. “God, and that was pretty bad. You need to get up and do something about it.”

What about Brand’s message that all the parties are the same? “There’s a huge difference. It’s just that their representatives are bland. But it’s clear, if you’ve got a pile of money in the bank, you vote for people with piles of money in the bank. Vote, bloody well vote! You’ll get nothing otherwise, and you’ll get slightly more than nothing if you do – but that’s better than nothing.”

What happened to anarchy in the UK then? When did he get serious? “The older you get the more you learn, all right?” Anyway, he says, “I never preached anarchy. It was just a novelty in a song. I always thought anarchy was just a mind game for the middle class.”

But now there’s Brand plugging his new book, Revolution, with a big following. “That’s a ratpile of laziness. What he’s preaching is a lifestyle of cardboard boxes down by the river. And he’s preaching all this from a mansion.”

Does it matter what Brand (nearly 40) or Lydon (57) say to the young? It’s good to hear a fight back against the dangerous idea that politics doesn’t matter and all parties are the same. Labour will never be good enough for the heavy freight of hope it always carries, but here’s a Conservative party undoing the entire 1945 welfare state settlement, from the NHS and council housing to social security and council services. Dull things, maybe, to Brand, who needs none of that – nor Sure Starts nor further education colleges offering second chances to long-term unemployed young people.

Lydon’s moving and funny book, Anger Is an Energy, tells of a hard childhood, appalling illness, sadness and toughness, educating himself through passionate reading in his local library. In a webchat on the Guardian site, he wrote: “The youth of today have every possibility of being as smart or as stupid as the youth of the past. So long as you remove Russell Brand from the agenda.” He’s right: Brand’s “revolution” is vain and destructive, peddling unreal, hip alternatives. Without proportional representation, new parties have no hope – and in its wisdom, the British public voted against even minor reform. Politics is never cool, because voting means opting for a least worst, never the imagined ideal.