"Age shall not weary them"* ....... when politicians pass their 70th birthday

So much of my life has been set against aged politicians who continued to aspire to the reigns of power.  

Michael Foot, Leader of the Labour Party, aged 70, Birmingham,1983

In 1951 Winston Churchill returned to power aged 78, Harold MacMillan departed office in his 67th year and through the 1980s heaps of Soviet leaders settled on the top job in their 70s and 80s.

So I was drawn to today's Radio 4 The Long View on "Aged Premiers". 

"If Donald Trump is elected to a second term as President of the United States he would be 82 at the end, if Joe Biden is re-elected he would be 86. Age has become a campaign weapon.

How effective have the octogenarian leaders of the past been shown to be?

One was William Ewart Gladstone who was Prime Minister four times, the last when he was 82. 

Dr Ruth Windscheffel Head of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at York St John University and author and editor of a number of books and articles about Gladstone discusses how his advanced age affected his final administration.

Emperor Gordian I acceded to Rome's Imperial throne in 238 AD in his early eighties. Dr James Corke-Webster is Reader in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King's College London. 

He discusses with Jonathan Freedland the events surrounding Gordian's rise to power in ancient Rome's most turbulent year.

Reader: Josh Bryant-Jones, Producer: Harry Parker"**

Location; On the Wireless

Pictures; Michael Foot, Leader of the Labour Party, aged 70 in Birmingham, in 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*For the Fallen, Robert Laurence Binyon, published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.

**Aged Premiers, The Long View, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trq3