If the mantra of generational conflict was persuasive in the coalition years, the general election seems to have cemented it. The over-65s, showered with state largesse, expressed their gratitude to their Conservative benefactors in the polling booths: 47% plumped for the Tories. Among the repeatedly kicked 18-24 age group, it was a Labour landslide: 43% for Ed Miliband’s party, with just 27% opting for a candidate with a blue rosette.
It’s been a standard finding for most of the past century or so, people become more conservative as they age…..surely he’s picked this up by now?
“people become more conservative as they age…..surely he’s picked this up by now?”
Except the lunatics.
Or those whose paycheck* depends upon this not happening.
(* the loony left really do understand and accept capitalism and markets insofar as it relates to their own pockets)
Age shall not wisen him nor custom blunt his infinite stupidity. He’ll end up as a selfrighteous and delusional old man in the Jeremy Corbyn manner.
Owen has become more conservative with age when he was 16 he supported the IRA. Of course now his income would drop if he changed his views too much he will stop becoming more conservative.
If he had a proper job his views would moderate.
I’m a long way off the over 65 bracket, so this isn’t personal, but ‘showered with state largesse’?
That largesse is provided by people who work or have worked, and the longer you put in, generally-speaking, the more you put in.
Teenagers to people in their early twenties should shut the fuck up and be grateful for what they receive.
File this under ‘Tories are greedy bastards’, when said by people who have never worked in their lives and are demanding more free stuff.
@interested
I’m still a dozen years from 65 but agree entirely. people in their early 20s grew up during one of the longest periods of growth we’ve seen in the UK. They got used to it. Now they whine about how tough things are for them because they can’t buy a house the moment they start work and that it’s all the fault of the baby boomers who ‘had it good’.
Yeah right. I grew up in the crap 70s and lived through the downturns in the 80s and 90s. I did buy a house, a few days after my 30th birthday, and yes, 20 years later I’m doing OK. But not one fucking penny of it was given to me.
Yep, AndrewC. I say that “Austerity” is being forced to buy an iPhone 5 rather than an iPhone 6 …….
See this in education. There is a mentality that good grades are some sort of right (little or no work required) and that if the pupil fails its the teacher’s fault.
This is carried on into life.
The old adage continues to hold… “If you don’t vote Labour in your 20s you have no heart. If you’re still voting Labour in your 40s you have no brain.”.
Speaking as one of the group who has “state largess” showered upon me, having worked my tits off for getting on for 50 years, in the process having contributed massive amounts of tax and NI to HMG, a measly few bob a month in state pension doesn’t quite seem to describe the situation.
Pogo… I think a better adage is: If you vote Labour when you’re in your 20s you have no brain; if you vote Labour in your 40s you’re insane.
@”Yep, AndrewC. I say that “Austerity” is being forced to buy an iPhone 5 rather than an iPhone 6 ……”
I think most people would happily live in a world without mobiles if houses were affordable again (of course the two are not linked one is caused by technological advances the other by Government policy).
@ Interested
The 18-24s have an understandable gripe about youth unemployment and the “fact” reported today that 58.8% of graduates are in “non-graduate” jobs.
Naturally they blame the current government despite this being a consequence of Tony Blair’s “Education, education, education” which produced a generation with too few craftsmen and skilled manual workers, so that we have needed a million Poles to do those jobs, and a couple of million with unwanted skills or degrees in joke subjects.
They were promised lots of things which the Coalition didn’t deliver because it couldn’t because it isn’t within the power of a democratic government to do so.
However raising the state pension to 45% of the minimum wage is hardly showering the over-65s with state largesse. Pension theorists maintain that an appropriate pension which pension schemes should target is two-thirds of pre-retirement income.
“See this in education. There is a mentality that good grades are some sort of right (little or no work required) and that if the pupil fails its the teacher’s fault.”
… And also today’s headline that “half of graduates are in non-graduate jobs”.
john77 beat me to it.
This state largesse that’s been showered on me. My cheque still hasn’t arrived, to whom do I complain?
“58.8% of graduates are in “non-graduate” jobs.”
Yes, I expect we have too many graduates and too few ‘graduate jobs’, whatever they are.
I graduated and entered the workforce in the middle of a fecking huge recession. I too worked in “non graduate jobs”. Did I whinge? Well yes, as a matter of fact I did, but only because I had a colossal sense of entitlement which working with real people in crap jobs eroded somewhat.
I wouldn’t say a generation free from early death from disease, free from conscription, half of whom don’t even have to think about working until they are 21 and who literally have the knowledge of the world at their fingertips, has been “repeatedly kicked”. Believing that you are just demonstrates your complete lack of awareness, but in your defence you are young, foolish and ignorant.
I’d say there’s some validity to the gripe.
The engineering of continually rising house prices can only be a massive transfer of wealth from the young, aspiring to buy, to the old, who already have.
Of course, it will end.
In tears.
@John77
I take your point, except that I don’t agree that ‘the 18-24s have an understandable gripe about youth unemployment’.
The other day on R4 there was an interview with some ‘young people’ from Newcastle who were not willing to travel to Sunderland for work. So the jobs in Sunderland (in this case in Starbucks) were taken by youngsters who had travelled from Poland.
If you don’t want to travel to Sunderland from Newcastle, and you cannot be arsed to start your own business – how many of those hand car washes we see everywhere these days are staffed by indigenous British kids? – you get fuck off, for my money.
I speak as someone who has done hard physical work at various points in his life, dangerous too, not as the comfortable me of now.
We have it too soft, that’s the problem.
Interested – to be fair, a young person from Newcastle will have been taught from birth that Sunderland is a terrible place that would corrupt your very soul if it weren’t that the denizens will have devoured your flesh first, so going there for a minimum wage job wouldn’t be the most attractive prospect.
I find it hard enough to leave civilisation and cross the water to the Mainland every day – although at least it’s not the Pompey end 🙂
“@ Interested
The 18-24s have an understandable gripe about youth unemployment and the “fact” reported today that 58.8% of graduates are in “non-graduate” jobs.
Naturally they blame the current government despite this being a consequence of Tony Blair’s “Education, education, education” which produced a generation with too few craftsmen and skilled manual workers, so that we have needed a million Poles to do those jobs, and a couple of million with unwanted skills or degrees in joke subjects.”
Sadly the current government are an heir to Blair with regards to education.
@Pellinor
We would seem to be near neighbours at work.
I am in Bedford Place, Southampton.
But the Questing Beast scatters fewmets all over Hampshire and Sussex so Pellinor is constantly on the move, I imagine!
Pellinor
To be even fairer, being taught thay Sunderland is a terrible place e that will core your very soul should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum.
The one thing on which I can agree with today’s young people is that, if you get a regular job, (‘graduate’ or not) then by about 27-years-old you should be able to consider a place, a home rather than a room, of your own. That our planning laws, coupled with a population boom caused by immigration, have have acted to prevent this shames us all.
And this is not an argument against immigration and certainly not against the hard working Poles who take the jobs; it is an indictment of our politicians who wouldn’t acknowledge the true impact of that immigration.
Ironman:
Planning laws are the problem.
Edinburgh currently has a boom in student accommodation development in the city centre. As I understand it, much of this is because of less strict planning requirements on living space, parking etc so developers are taking the easy option.
There is no reason why develo
Bugger, pressed send too soon.
Can’t be arsed typing out the comment again; point I was going to make was there is a definite market for very small urban studio-style apartments for single first time buyers, but planning restrictions prevent them being built.
“The engineering of continually rising house prices can only be a massive transfer of wealth from the young, aspiring to buy, to the old, who already have.” But then the old die and the capital recycles to the young. Now that the first baby-bommers are pushing 70 this phenomenon is going to accelerate.
Soon the codgers will be complaining that they can’t take it with them.
@ Interested
The inhabitants of Sunderland are likely to be friendlier to Polish immigrants than lads from Newcastle – not as bad as wearing an Arsenal scarf at The Den, but it is viewed as hostile territory.
@”Ironman
August 19, 2015 at 11:53 am
The one thing on which I can agree with today’s young people is that, if you get a regular job, (‘graduate’ or not) then by about 27-years-old you should be able to consider a place, a home rather than a room, of your own. That our planning laws, coupled with a population boom caused by immigration, have have acted to prevent this shames us all.
And this is not an argument against immigration and certainly not against the hard working Poles who take the jobs; it is an indictment of our politicians who wouldn’t acknowledge the true impact of that immigration.
”
I agree I am not anti immigrants (apart from the few criminals, parasites, Islamists etc). I am anti mass immigration and no new homes
“Britain’s failure to create sufficient high-skilled jobs for its rising proportion of graduates…”
Someone needs to tell the G that gender & media studies graduates aren’t suited to high-skilled (or perhaps even any) jobs anyway.
AndrewC – If you’re in Bedford Place, I’m five minutes up the Avenue from you 🙂
What about us non-graduates doing graduates’ jobs should we be shunted sideways to make way for them?
In my case usually people with telecom’s engineering degrees, but I can’t be the only one who went through the C&G and HND route and proved my worth to a number of clients by delivering.
BiND,
Like me… I don’t have a degree, left school in ’96 with A levels in Maths, Physics and Computer Science. Joined a local materials testing lab and now am running the department in China. Am studying for a business degree online and hopefully will be general manager in a few years. Ok not going to be millionaire anytime soon but I’ve done alright through not being completely stupid, willing to work hard and take a few risks with moving away and what-not.
In my opinion a few years in industry is worth infinitely more than some Mickey Mouse degree, a massive sense of entitlement and a huge chip on your shoulder.
In some cases I know of, non-graduates re shunted aside to make way for graduates. This is public-sector jobs where a department gets reshuffled and the jobs get regraded and re-specced, and the new spec says you need to be a graduate.
So when everyone needs to reapply for their role, they suddenly find that they don’t meet the person spec for the job they’ve been doing for 20 years, and can only apply for a junior role. Luckily, of course, their salaries are protected so they keep their manager salary even though they’re acting as a filing clerk…
What VftS said.
@dearieme
““The engineering of continually rising house prices can only be a massive transfer of wealth from the young, aspiring to buy, to the old, who already have.” But then the old die and the capital recycles to the young. Now that the first baby-bommers are pushing 70 this phenomenon is going to accelerate.”
But it doesn’t recycle to the young. It recycles to the next generation down. Which in my case is a 60 (ish) baby boomer who’s just copped half a mils worth of the old mans house appreciation. To add to my ill gotten spoils.
Of course I could be helping…my children?..my grandchildren?… onto the merry-go-round. (If there was other than the very ex wife’s, very much legacy hell-spawn in contention) But that doesn’t do much for those not blessed with accumulative but generous parents/grandparents.
Tell you. If I was in my 20s I’d be feeling a mite revolutionary, about now.
Pellinor:
Another Isle of Wighter, in here?
(Although my usual house is just outside Soton…)
I have no doubt Owen Jones would have supported the various proposals bandied about by fringe think tanks than on issues like Climate change the elderly should not be permitted to vote because they might oppose the ‘essential measures’ (on the grounds they are codswallop and usually involve switching to a North Korean economic setup involving total state control)which will ‘guarantee the survival of the human race’.
Or else he would have echoed the mantra first enunciated by Clive Soley (ILP Chairman under Blair) – that the elderly were part of ‘The forces of conservatism’, ‘often racist’ and ‘an impediment to progress’.
It’s only now seeing the Greens wither on the vine and the calamitous result from the Hard Left in 2015 that he is seeing the elderly not through compassionate eyes but with a ruthlessly calculating eye on ‘electoral advantage’ – will he take account of their scepticism on topics like gay marriage or immigration? I leave you to answer – cynical even by hi pretty based standards…..
@John Square & Pellinor
It’s a Southampton/IOW love in!
I live in Hedge End and work in Bedford Place
Andrew C: I’m Droxford. Meon Valley FTW.
Interested:
“how many of those hand car washes we see everywhere these days are staffed by indigenous British kids?”
OT, but how many of those car washes are money-laundering operations? My daughter, a City lawyer working on fraud cases, reckons a large number of them are fronts for laundering for money from crime.
bnis
” If I was in my 20s I’d be feeling a mite revolutionary, about now.”
They can rent, of course; and then buy, if they wish, when they receive their inheritance. I have friends in Germany who rented until they were 50-ish and only then bought a property, having inherited some cash.
@Theophrastus – possibly quite a few!
AndrewC/John – indeed, I’m in Cowes.
Or rather, just outside Cowes watching the harbour spin round me in the rain as the Jet docks.
Theophrastus
The Glasgow crime gangs started using tanning salons to launder money, hence why there is one in most shopping areas.
I seem to remember that one got closed down as the non-too-bright gang put too much cash through it. The prosecution worked out that it would have to have had hundreds of clients a day to get the turnover that was claimed.
Well yes, Theo. And prop up someone’s BTL investment for 30 years..
I think the words I’m searching for are “you f**k right off”
Well, the fun of Educhation Educhation Educhation was really that it was OverEduchation OverEduchation OverEduchation. Channel people who would have gone straight into white collar work or who would have done blue-collar apprenticeships to nonsense degrees or degrees in non-academic subjects like hotel / golf course mgt. Then, 10 years after, wonder why graduates having done traditional subjects are doing previously-non-degree jobs……
One of the things I like about the CH system is that the chap managing the hotel will have done a “kaufmännische Ausbildung”, a sub-degree-level white collar track, studying business mgt while simultaneously doing on the job training in hotels. Colleague’s sprog is doing the same as a bank Mitarbeiter at the moment (while simultaneously doing semipro cycling).
“They can rent, of course; and then buy, if they wish, when they receive their inheritance. I have friends in Germany who rented until they were 50-ish and only then bought a property, having inherited some cash.”
funny how the people who used to bang on about the Continong doing things better has now decided that a) the EU is a neoliberal construction, and always was, and b) bashing the Govt cos people are now doing what people have done in Germany and France since forever.
I’ve got round to reading the actual CIPD report, not just the BBC summary.
Turns out that the 58.8% figure is for 2010 and the period during which the UK came second-bottom of the list for creating jobs for graduates was 1996-2008. Cross-country analysis showed that there was actually a negative correlation between the increase in the numbers doing university degrees or the equivalent and the number of graduate jobs created – solely thanks to the UK which had the highest %age going to university and the second-lowest increase in “graduate-level” jobs. in 2004 just under 40% of *all* graduates were in “non-graduate” jobs, in 2010, nearly 60% were. This means that the *increase* in the number of graduates in non-graduate jobs was roughly equal to the total number of graduates in the six years!!
Six years of youngsters sent to university for three years at massive cost to their familes, themselves and the taxpayer to earn qualifications for jobs that did not exist.
Put this on the charge sheet right below “Invading Iraq”
@ Theophrastus and b(n)is
#1 son is renting a much nicer flat than I did when I was his age despite having been hit by two mass redundancies in his early 20s and been out of work for a few months while job hunting, so moderately underpaid relative to the value of work done. Since, nominally an Actuary, I *should* have been pretty near the top of the heap in those days, I have to query just how much more terrible the need for youngsters to rent accommodation today than in our youth can be? How many of you are comparing market rents today with subsidised rents in council houses in your youth rather than with market rents in your youth? Anyhow, the quality of accommodation is more important than the rent as long as you can afford the rent.
@john77
Be interesting to know what proportion of his income he’s spending on rent. Back when I was his age & pulling a reasonable wage the rent proportion was a fair bit less than a day’s earnings. For a very small place in South Kensington. It wasn’t that I couldn’t of afforded more. Back then, larger flats in that area simply didn’t exist, Unless you graduated up to living cheek by jowl with duchesses.
Council flats?!?! No-one our age had a council flat. More chance of bumping into a polar bear in Knightsbridge.
When I was talking with an acquaintance’s daughter I was horrified to find how much she was paying for a flat share in W. Hampstead. West Hampstead! We used to delouse after intrepid expeditions to West Hampstead. That’s estateagentese for Kilburn. And, being a girl ‘an that, she’s probably, proportionately, on a better screw than I was. With close to half of her net going on rent. How does she have a life?
” I have to query just how much more terrible the need for youngsters to rent accommodation today than in our youth can be? ”
Being that there don’t actually seem to be any jobs going outside the low numbered, London postal codes, quite pressing I’d imagine.
Pellinor et al., blimey, and here’s me originally from Ryde. Small world, and so on.
reckons a large number of them are fronts for laundering for money from crime
easy to tell, is there any real work going on in a particular car washing premises. If so its probably genuine. Crime and real work tend not to mix much.
Bloke in Costa Rica – it is indeed a small world 🙂
Not to be confused with that rather larger imitation of a world, that looms only a mile or two across the Solent…
@ b(n)is
it would be mildly interesting but he doesn’t tell us so we don’t ask; I assume that he can afford it. Since he is in Chester, because that is where had to go to get a job I expect it’s cheaper than in central London.