DON’T BLAME IT ON THE BOOMERS!

If Britain’s going broke and Gen Z can’t buy a house...

So now we know what one of the brains behind Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves believes is responsible for Britain’s economic woes.

Blame it on the Boomers.

Sir Edward Troup, a former HMRC boss, announced last week as a member of Labour’s panel of money-raising experts, is on record as saying that those of us born between 1945 and 1964 are an ‘under-taxed’ generation.

He claims we have ‘had it ridiculously good’ and should be paying even more income tax, national insurance and VAT. And he wants free TV licences stripped from pensioners over 75 and given to young families instead. when Troup was asked how the Government can increase revenue, he replied: ‘we should be looking at the codgers.’

He admits: ‘I’m a baby boomer, I was born in 1955, and we have had it ridiculously good. we’ve benefited from low interest rates, high inflation when we bought our houses, we’ve enjoyed good returns on whatever we’ve managed to put into our pension funds. we’re not paying national insurance if we’re still working after the age of 60, and it’s a complete disgrace.’

Troup, public school and oxford-educated son of a Vice Admiral, who enjoyed a glittering, well-remunerated career as a tax lawyer and was head of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs before becoming a Treasury adviser and Knight of the Realm, may well think that he has had it ‘ridiculously good’.

Millions of his fellow Baby Boomers would beg to differ. Somehow the myth has developed that those of us born in the 20 years after world war II grew up on Easy Street.

Low interest rates are a fairly recent phenomenon. In 1979, they peaked at 17 per cent and stayed there until the Thatcher reforms worked their way through the system.

when we bought our first twoup, two - down cottage in the mid-1970s, we had to get a mortgage, at a premium, from the local council because the banks and building societies wouldn’t lend to first-time buyers. The rate was 14 per cent.

waves of strikes and what seemed like a permanent energy crisis pushed prices through the stratosphere.

As for pensions, millions who looked forward to a carefree old age are now struggling, thanks to Gordon Brown’s cynical smash-and-grab raid on private pension funds and the collapse of final salary schemes. The global financial crash in 2008 wiped billions off retirement funds.

This isn’t designed to sound like Monty Python’s famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but it is intended to inject a little perspective into the current trend towards driving a wedge between Boomers and today’s Gen Z.

Plenty of Boomers who by now expected to be enjoying a comfortable retirement are still working, either out of choice or, in many cases, out of necessity to make ends meet, especially if they have to rely on the state pension. If still working, they’re faced with the highest tax burden for 70 years.

not that most of my generation have ever been frightened of hard work, unlike — it would seem — today’s 20-somethings.

when I was making my way in the world, working two or three jobs at a time wasn’t unusual. I did it myself. Plenty of us picked up the work habit early, delivering papers and groceries, or as Saturday girls in hairdressers, while we were still at school.

Today, we keep being told Gen Zers don’t want to work. official figures released in March showed that nearly three million under- 25s are economically inactive — not working and not looking for a job either.

Survey after survey say they reject the notion of doing a Dolly Parton— working 9 to 5. Employers complain that half the time applicants don’t even bother turning up for an interview.

And these are the people Labour’s latest economic adviser wants to give free TV licences — even though they’ve never bought one in the first place since they watch everything on their tablets and mobile phones.

Look, I accept youngsters are struggling to get on the housing ladder, but that’s not the fault of Boomers. The blame lies with successive governments who have deliberately encouraged mass immigration, which has seen the population rise by 10 million to 68 million since Labour’s landslide in 1997, without bothering to ensure that there are sufficient homes, or public services, to go round.

Forcing Boomers to ‘downsize’ isn’t the answer, just punishment for those who have worked hard and paid taxes all their lives so they can enjoy the fruits of their endeavours. If we’ve had it ‘ridiculously good’, we’ve earned it.

People try to put us down, but it’s not the fault of My Generation. whatever problems Britain faces today are the result of wrongheaded, vindictive policies passed by westminster politicians.

Don’t blame it on the Codgers, don’t blame it on the Boomers, blame it on the Bubble.