The Broken Generation

The challenges facing 20-somethings these days are considerable. It is, let’s not forget, the generation who have seen little benefit from the generosity of previous decades. A generosity seen through unregulated booming house price growth, universal further education grants and the last scrapings of the projected state pension pot gifted to elder generations.

It is, debatably, the price of liberal thinking and universal equality causing a clash of the age-old titans: economics and ideology. Unfortunately, the credit afforded ideology has dried, with the menacing bailiffs knocking on the doors of No.11 Downing Street for collection. It seems the cupboards are bare of silverware, as the words of the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne to his successor resonate; “I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”. These words, no doubt penned in the spirit of Westminster wit and black humour, are nonetheless ill thought through. They only remind people of the fact that a Labour Chancellor nearly always runs out of money, and as a result takes the country to the brink of bankruptcy in a giddy joy ride of ideological spending.

This is the time when regardless of what the elder sibling was given as a child, there are no hand-me-downs for the youngsters. There is no right of passage and any concept of precedent has disappeared. It’s the greed of the previous overspending generations that have made it virtually impossible for young people to get onto the property ladder. It’s a sorry state of affairs that the average age of the first time buyer in the UK, unaided by their parents, is now 39. How can you expect the youth of today to save for the future against no security? How can there be any social mobility when the disparity between the landlord and the worker is widening so easily? The rich stay rich and the young stay poor.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually believe in universal handouts. I think the role of government should be to set the correct environment to support those who want to work hard and achieve. I know we have a steep hill to climb to claw our way out of the deficit, but stacking the odds so greatly against the workforce of tomorrow is dangerous.

The state of British universities and education policy is something that interests me considerably, as I’ve blogged previously. Lord Browne’s recent report on UK further education actually fell more or less in line with my views and expectations I set out a couple of months ago, specifically regarding the need to open further education up to the free market (to a certain extent – I wouldn’t advocate the US model). However, on top of the poisonous environment facing the youth of today, it appears the failings of historic education policy has not been addressed; too many people attending too many universities. It spreads the cash out very thin, meaning the quality reduces to a detrimental extent, certainly at the ex-polytechnic institutions who lack the commercial options that the Oxford’s and Cambridge’s have built up over 800 years. What’s created is a two-tier system, whereby the poor can’t afford to go to university and the rich will


As a result, what’s facing this broken generation when the music stops and the house lights come on, is a post-graduation hangover of £20,000 debt, with narrowing prospects of a decent job. You know you won’t get a pension to support you in your later years but you can’t get on the property ladder to save any equity to compensate that. Your future has been mortgaged to save the generation who sold the family silver.

Tomorrow’s Spending Review will be delivered with the deliberately standard lines; that the Government has inherited this situation and the cuts will be tough but fair. What, I ask, is fair about stuffing the youth of today and tomorrow by suffocating any flickering flame of aspiration? When opening such a Pandoras box of pain to tackle this frightening economic situation, those at the helm should at least follow suit and leave hope firmly locked inside.