Tim Newark

to fan this fire because they know older voters are unimpressed by Corbyn’s fantasy Marxism but for any party to betray senior generations who have worked hard and saved all their lives is plain wrong.

The older generation has paid enough tax over several decades to feel more than satisfied they have made their fair contribution to society. Young people will become old in due course and so should invest towards their own future care.

Many older people view the capital they have built up in their homes not as a luxury but as a sum of money to fund their old age and help younger members of their family. They don’t expect the Government to step in and start helping themselves to that money over a sum of £125,000, as Lord Willetts and his Resolution Foundation is suggesting.

That violates one of the most fundamental rights of our free society – that private property is protected under the law. Once governments start flouting that and essentially stealing that money, we are on the road to tyranny.

Private citizens are much better at allocating their own money than governments. I want to pass on my money to my children in my own way and not have government telling me what’s best – because invariably they either get it wrong or waste it.

But having created the generational gap in the first place, interfering government is now seeking to solve the problem by taking more money from us all.

The increasing cost of social care should come from direct taxation, not from council tax or any other unfairly targeted tax. It is a cost we must all bear and polls routinely indicate a majority of people of all ages would be happy to pay a little more for a well-funded NHS and its ancillary services.

To help young people directly the Government should slash university fees and the interest rates paid on that debt. The vast sums of money paid by students has been swallowed up in a higher education feeding frenzy epitomised by the obscene amounts paid to senior managers at universities.

Let young people’s money go towards mortgages and encourage them to save, like we all did when we were younger, to buy their own homes. It was never easy but the sacrifices we made then to own our own homes has paid off in later years. Now government, according to Lord Willetts’ suggestions, wants to knock on our doors and take yet another chunk of that hardearned money.

Considering that it is older voters that mainly support the Conservatives, Theresa May would be insane to favour taxing older people more to give money away to youngsters.

ABOVE all, interest rates should be normalised to reward savers and see the over-inflated prices of houses come down. One good point in the Resolution Foundation report was to encourage owners of multiple properties to put them back on the market for first-time buyers by giving them a tax break. But higher interest rates would be a more efficient engine for doing this anyway.

Overall, however, Lord Willetts and his associates want to micro-manage our lives in order to reduce the so-called generational gulf.

But if the past has taught us anything, it is that less government and less taxes make life easier and fairer for us all.

‘Slash university fees to help young people’