The younger generation continue to be let down in a so-called liberal country that is still rigged in favour of the rich and powerful elite, says Brian Reade. And they make easy prey for Nigel Farage
Another week, another damning snapshot on how hard we are making life for our young people. One survey claimed half of 16 to 24-year-olds suffer poor mental health, another showed graduate hiring was down by 8% last year and the Covid Inquiry was told by Boris Johnson’s ex-education secretary that his deceit and disinterest during the pandemic misled and harmed state schoolkids.
More research showed that 22 to 29-year-olds, who on average earn £31,200, are now “officially priced out” of renting in London, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. Meanwhile, those aged 18-21 are excluded from most major cities.
It’s further proof of how most of today’s young adults are destined to earn less and work longer for worse pensions than their parents, and stay living with them until their mum’s hands are too frail to scrub their undies.
Small wonder research has shown half of them feel that playing by the rules no longer determines success, and a third are contemplating emigrating. Which is not just very depressing but very dangerous. Because the disillusion of young voters with democracy is fuelling the global surge of right-wing populism and dictatorships.
Earlier this year a Europe-wide survey showed only half of 16 to 29-year-olds in France and Spain believe that democracy is the best form of government and in the UK only 57% preferred it over dictatorship. As chilling as that is, when you see how little the Tory/Labour consensus has done for ordinary kids in their lifetimes and how little the entire political class prioritises their needs, it’s also understandable.
Look at social mobility. Last month the Sutton Trust reported that the privately educated are tightening their “vice-like grip” on the UK’s most powerful positions – such as FTSE 100 CEOs, judges and diplomats – with those in the most influential jobs five times as likely to have attended private schools than state ones.
How is our democracy working when inherited wealth still determines who runs it? Why would young people buy into our political system when they see how disgraced Lords like Michelle Mone are free to sit in the highest law-making chamber in the land and be called a Baroness.
Why would they respect our constitutional monarchy when the brother of the man who heads it, despite being mired in a paedophile sex scandal, still lives in the lap of luxury and they are expected to defer to him as their Royal Highness?
The system stinks and young people’s nostrils increasingly whiff it. Would we invent a hereditary monarchy, an upper law-making chamber based on favour and privilege and a dominant private school sector that ensures wealth stays with the rich elite, if they didn’t already exist?
After decades of so-called liberal progress the British Establishment has never worked more for those with wealth and power and against those without it. Which is ordinary young people. Which may explain why Reform UK (which laughably brands itself the anti-Establishment party) now polls at around 17% among 18 to 24-year-olds, double the highest youth support its predecessor UKIP ever achieved.
The frightening thing is not what will happen if this young generation falls for ten-job Farage and his band of wealthy con artists, but after Reform are exposed as even bigger supporters of our failing democracy, who the next generation will be seduced by. Maybe we should change it before it’s too late.
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