BRIAN READE: ‘Young individuals want a correct shot at life, to not be handled as a joke’

Labour’s new deal for young people doesn’t go far enough, argues Brian Reade, who says we need to stop accusing them all of being lazy gits, and give them real hope for the future

What a warped and screwed-up world we’re passing on to today’s young people. Imagine the effect it must have on their view of life to know their elders are quite happy to let them become the first generation to be worse off than their parents.

How chilling to know we’re OK with reports like this week’s from the Centre for Social Justice that today’s primary schoolchildren will not receive their state pension until they’re at least 75. And that AI is decimating youth’s chances of getting on the career ladder, with recent data showing a 20% drop in entry-level positions in many white-collar fields.

As for the housing ladder? Sorry, it’s your parents’ spare room for you until your 40s. That’s if you’ve enough cash left after paying your student debt to afford a mortgage. And all the time the planet that they will rely on far more than we will is being burnt to a crisp, while old-school dictators like Trump, Putin and Netanyahu risk Armageddon in some deluded pursuit of a glorious legacy.

But then, why should these megalomaniacs worry what happens to humanity when their average age is 76 and they’ll soon be gone, leaving others to deal with the postapocalypse. Imagine how fewer destructive, short-sighted, self-serving policies might be adopted if power was redistributed to those with the biggest stake in the future. Look at this country.

The average age of a British person is just shy of 41. Yet the average age of the highest law-making body in the land, the Lords, is 70, with over half of the 842 peers that age or older. There are six times more peers aged 90-99 than there are in the 30-39 age bracket, with only 3.7% under the age of 50. How can that be right, especially when, with the passing of hereditary peers, these are all political appointments. So it’s a choice to exclude the generations whose futures the laws are being made for.

Instead of looking at that damning statistic of one million 16-24-year-olds not being in education, employment or training, and accusing them all of being lazy gits sitting at home on their PlayStations claiming they’ve got ADHD, why don’t we ask why we’ve allowed the situation where entering adulthood has never been harder.

I left school during the last global oil crisis of the 1970s, and despite the many economic problems of the time, society was geared to helping us make our way. University education was free, there were plenty of decently paid, secure jobs, affordable houses, cheap mortgages and council houses for those who didn’t want to go into debt. Plus it was easy to move to London if you wanted to broaden your horizons. All that has gone.

Labour’s “new deal for young people” – a £1billion youth employment scheme, is long overdue. But they need a much bigger deal. The student debt rip-off has to stop, more social housing needs to be built, big firms should be incentivised to move jobs out of London, older people given financial encouragement to retire early and free up jobs, peers over 75 retired and replaced by under-40s and the voting age reduced to 16. It’s high time we started taking the needs of young people seriously rather than treating them as a punchline to a bad joke.