Only uniting young and old will get UK moving

THE sight of Jeremy Corbyn at the age of 68 being feted at Glastonbury might be cheering for those of us who are working beyond normal retirement age, but it should send a chill down the spine of the Tory high command. For the most important split in British politics is no longer one of class or income, but one of age. The young overwhelmingly vote Labour, the old Conservative.

William Shakespeare wrote: “Crabbéd age and youth cannot live together,” (at least he is thought to have been the author). After Glastonbury, maybe Corbyn is able to show how they can.

Certainly, our 91-year-old Queen was better able to connect with the victims of the Grenfell Tower catastrophe than our 60-year-old Prime Minister. There are stories that the Conservatives are seeking to jump a generation when they choose their next leader, but this is not about the age of politicians. It is about who can create an optimistic vision of the future for the next generation. Old and young have no option but to live together. Who can best frame the policies that will help them to do so harmoniously?

The Labour answer is for government to play a greater role; put crudely, tax and spend. The old won’t go a bundle on that — they remember the Seventies. The Tories can point out that it actually will be the young who will, one way or another, have to pay those taxes, not companies or “the rich”.

They can show that the company sector in Britain pays a rather larger share of taxes than in most other developed countries and that the top 1% of income tax payers are responsible for nearly 30% of all receipts. They can argue that, for all the talk of austerity, public spending as a percentage of GDP is higher now than in the early years of the Labour government, when Gordon Brown was in his prudent mode. They can point out that for hundreds of thousands of young Europeans the UK does offer better opportunities than their home countries. That is why they come. And so on.

But none of this seems to wash with the youth vote. The Labour sums might not add up, but the appeal remains enormous. Though this Government is preoccupied with Brexit talks, it must make a start of tackling the concerns of the next generation — assuming it survives long enough to do so.

There are a number of areas where the Government can begin. David Willetts, the former Conservative universities minister, now chairman of the Resolution Foundation, has set out some ideas. Top of his list is to build more homes. It is widely appreciated that the surge in house prices has given the baby-boomers, those born between the mid-Forties and early Sixties, a huge windfall in wealth. Less wellknown is that quite small differences in the year of birth creates large differences in life chances. For example, an adult born between 1980 and 1985 has, on average, half as much wealth at the age of 30 than one born five years earlier. Baby-boomers have half the wealth in the country; millennials, those born between the early Eighties and mid2000s, have just 2%. Building more houses and flats would not tackle wealth inequality directly, but by increasing the stock of housing, it would help to curb the rise in house prices. A society in which young people cannot hope to own their own home is a catastrophe. Build more homes and they can.

University tuition fees must be tackled. Whatever view one takes of the fairness or otherwise of the English system, heading into one’s first job with an average debt of £32,000 or more is daunting. For a start, the interest charged on student debt is too high. Admitting that two-thirds of students will never pay off their debt acknowledges that the system is unsustainable. The idea mooted by Corbyn — that student debts should be written off — is hardly likely to become policy under any government, including a future Labour one. But carrying on with the present system is hopeless too.

The greatest challenge, however, is to improve education (and access to education), at all levels and for all people. The present generation of young working people are competing not only against their contemporaries in Europe — whatever happens in the negotiations, movement of jobs between the UK and the EU will continue — they are competing directly or indirectly against their peers throughout the world. Education is the answer, and it is the responsibility of each generation to ensure that the next one is better equipped than it has been.

The UK is only middle of the pack among the main developed nations in the achievements of those aged 16, according to the OECD Pisa study. Worse, we are if anything slipping down the rankings. We are right to celebrate our best universities, at or towards the top of the global league. But we are uneven, and too many schools are not good enough.

‘Tuition fees must be tackled. Heading into one’s first job owing on average £32,000 is daunting’

BUT none of this will convince the young that the Tories have their best interests at heart until and unless they really do. This is not just about political advantage. It is about helping to nudge the country towards a more balanced, decent society.

The second line of that poem is: “Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care”. Well, youth is evidently not full enough of pleasance, but age jolly well should be full of care — so it can do better for the next generation.