Should the government introduce an emergency brake on welfare spending?

The emergency brake passed by a comfortable 16-point margin, 25 to 18, but this was not a uniform swing. It was a result manufactured by the shape of who turned up rather than a broad national mood, with the two largest age brackets voting to a standstill and the smaller older cohorts tipping the balance.

The starkest thing here is the age fracture: 16-24s split 7-7 and 25-34s split 10-10, a dead heat across 34 of the 43 profiled votes. Yet the much smaller 35-44 and 45-54 groups came down overwhelmingly for the brake, effectively supplying the whole of Yes's cushion. It is the classic generational split on welfare reform in miniature — those closer to drawing on the system, or watching its cost rise, more willing to pull the handbrake than those still furthest from needing it.

Gender told a milder version of the same story: women backed the brake 64% to 36%, men were tied at 50-50. Put together, the pattern looks less like a national verdict on welfare spending and more like the fiscal-hawk instinct — the same one animating the TBI's report — finding its firmest home among slightly older women, while the under-35 vote, male and female alike, simply could not agree.

A 58% Yes majority sounds decisive on the card, but strip away the tie in the two biggest brackets and what remains is a narrow, generationally lopsided consensus.