Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
There is a real problem in this. I'm not sure if people shy away from it in embarrasment at stating the apparent or genuinely don't see it.
Just watch kids and teenagers interviewed on telly in their schools. With greater or lesser efficiency they parrot out the views on any subject which they have clearly been drilled on for the whole of the morning prior to the live interviews. When did you ever see such an interviewee go off message - saying for instance their school isn't the best in England, Margaret Thatcher might have had a point etc etc.
Voting and elections depend upon voters expressing their OWN opinions and having their OWN opinions. School and I suspect the crapper universities rely on exactly the opposite. The compliant pupils and students who do well are the ones who don't challenge or else only challenge within the acceptable parameters.
How then do you determine that those who vote are expressing their own views and not those which have been foisted upon them by well meaning teachers ?
In that scenario it is hardly surprising that 18 to 24s don't express the full spectrum of adult views - many will never have been exposed to views contrary to those of the slightly left of centre adults with whom they have interacted.
In spite of that I suspect many don't vote because they are in fact aware of contention and making a genuine choice. That is totally contrary to the school environment where there is only one definite right answer. Not voting might be a cop out but in fact if you aren't certain then surely that is the right thing to do.
Do you have kids of your own? Mine are extremely opinionated about pretty much everything and have their own message. There may be a reluctance to express that view in a public forum but that doesn't mean that it does not exist.
The hard truth is that 18-24 year olds deserve to be ignored because many of them don't vote and they aren't interested in politics. Until they change this situation themselves (they are adults, after all), the political parties will just ignore them.
The hard truth is that this generation are getting it very tough. Unlike their parents who generally got free education they leave University with devalued degrees loaded with debts, they are finding it incredibly hard to find that first step on the employment ladder, they are finding that huge areas of the work force have been casualised with no obvious career plans and insufficient job security for a mortgage. They are going to be working their entire adult lives for a set of greedy bastards who thought they had the right to retire at 60-65 on index linked pensions and who spent £2trn more on themselves than they were willing to pay in taxes. The only upside I can see is that they get to choose the care homes!
Unless they are very intelligent and planning on a career where a degree is necessary young people are better off staying at home and learning a trade.
In fact a definition of stupidity might be the young person who gets a meaningless degree from a mediocre university and then moves to London expecting to be a success.
We are heading towards a two tier system, if we're not there already.
If you come from a rich background, you can - and should - go to uni, get a degree, move to London (where most if not all of the well paid grad jobs are), you can afford to intern for a year or two while the parents pay the rent, then a couple of years in they give you a nice deposit for a one or two bedroom flat, enabling you to stay in the city and rise up the corporate ladder and the housing ladder while paying down your whopping student debt.
Everyone else? You're stuffed. You can't afford to go to uni, forget about moving out of your home town, don't apply for grad jobs, you won't be able to afford to intern, and if by some miracle you do manage to make it you'll be saddled with 30-40k minimum student debt and good luck ever saving for a deposit for a house. Better to stay in your home town, learn a trade, know your place.
In years to come we may look back on the latter half of the 20th century as the most egalitarian time in human history. Now, it's be born rich or be buggered.
Presumably the Lib-Dems, Labour and Greens are speaking for Millennials now and as they get older and more sensible (see right wing) the Conservatives will speak up for them?
Same as all other generations?
Churchill of course said 'if you are young and a conservative you have no heart, if you are old and not a conservative you have no head' or something similar
Surely you mean falsely attributed to Churchill by those who like to pop out this bit of triteness as if it was the wisdom of the ages?
The hard truth is that 18-24 year olds deserve to be ignored because many of them don't vote and they aren't interested in politics. Until they change this situation themselves (they are adults, after all), the political parties will just ignore them.
The hard truth is that this generation are getting it very tough. Unlike their parents who generally got free education they leave University with devalued degrees loaded with debts, they are finding it incredibly hard to find that first step on the employment ladder, they are finding that huge areas of the work force have been casualised with no obvious career plans and insufficient job security for a mortgage. They are going to be working their entire adult lives for a set of greedy bastards who thought they had the right to retire at 60-65 on index linked pensions and who spent £2trn more on themselves than they were willing to pay in taxes. The only upside I can see is that they get to choose the care homes!
Unless they are very intelligent and planning on a career where a degree is necessary young people are better off staying at home and learning a trade.
In fact a definition of stupidity might be the young person who gets a meaningless degree from a mediocre university and then moves to London expecting to be a success.
We are heading towards a two tier system, if we're not there already.
If you come from a rich background, you can - and should - go to uni, get a degree, move to London (where most if not all of the well paid grad jobs are), you can afford to intern for a year or two while the parents pay the rent, then a couple of years in they give you a nice deposit for a one or two bedroom flat, enabling you to stay in the city and rise up the corporate ladder and the housing ladder while paying down your whopping student debt.
Everyone else? You're stuffed. You can't afford to go to uni, forget about moving out of your home town, don't apply for grad jobs, you won't be able to afford to intern, and if by some miracle you do manage to make it you'll be saddled with 30-40k minimum student debt and good luck ever saving for a deposit for a house. Better to stay in your home town, learn a trade, know your place.
In years to come we may look back on the latter half of the 20th century as the most egalitarian time in human history. Now, it's be born rich or be buggered.
Or they could just work while at university - and emerge with a hugely smaller loan or none at all. Parents don't come into it.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
If expansion didn't mean cookie cutter estates of poor quality houses with inadequate infrastructure and no provision for local shops, more people would be supportive.
The hard truth is that 18-24 year olds deserve to be ignored because many of them don't vote and they aren't interested in politics. Until they change this situation themselves (they are adults, after all), the political parties will just ignore them.
The hard truth is that this generation are getting it very tough. Unlike their parents who generally got they were willing to pay in taxes. The only upside I can see is that they get to choose the care homes!
Unless they are very intelligent and planning on a career where a degree is necessary young people are better off staying at home and learning a trade.
In fact a definition of stupidity might be the young person who gets a meaningless degree from a mediocre university and then moves to London expecting to be a success.
We are heading towards a two tier system, if we're not there already.
If you come from a rich background, you can - and should - go to uni, get a degree, move to London (where most if not all of the well paid grad jobs are), you can afford to intern for a year or two while the parents pay the rent, then a couple of years in they give you a nice deposit for a one or two bedroom flat, enabling you to stay in the city and rise up the corporate ladder and the housing ladder while paying down your whopping student debt.
Everyone else? You're stuffed. You can't afford to go to uni, forget about moving out of your home town, don't apply for grad jobs, you won't be able to afford to intern, and if by some miracle you do manage to make it you'll be saddled with 30-40k minimum student debt and good luck ever saving for a deposit for a house. Better to stay in your home town, learn a trade, know your place.
In years to come we may look back on the latter half of the 20th century as the most egalitarian time in human history. Now, it's be born rich or be buggered.
My experience is that the two tier system comes in more in the public sector/charities.
My friends from poorer backgrounds focused on corporate giants at university who gave them interest free loans to get set up in London, who had well paid internships etc... Very competitive to get but in a way more egalitarian.
But if you want to intern for cancer research or a newspaper or something like that you need savings or a free place to stay.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
If expansion didn't mean cookie cutter estates of poor quality houses with inadequate infrastructure and no provision for local shops, more people would be supportive.
My experience is no one wants their village/town to get bigger... Even as they moan that local shops are shutting down. It's always... Just build them somewhere else.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
If expansion didn't mean cookie cutter estates of poor quality houses with inadequate infrastructure and no provision for local shops, more people would be supportive.
There is no point making more and more boxes for people to live in unless you are also going to put in the doctors' surgeries, schools, roads, water supply, sewerage etc etc.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
No -- we need new jobs outside the south-east. Concentrating more and more of the economy in one part of the country is bad for social cohesion and (worse for some) is just too expensive, and will get more so as competition for limited resources becomes fiercer.
Or they could just work while at university - and emerge with a hugely smaller loan or none at all. Parents don't come into it.
If tuition fees are 9k and you have to pay living expenses on top of that... What legal part time job is going to cover that? In many respects it makes sense to maximise a low cost loan and pay it off later. If you're doing a proper course you should be studying... Not working in a bar.
Speaking as a millennial - had a chat with my friends recently about how we picked our university degree subject. One friend - now do very well at a big 4 firm - said he picked his subject because he saw a film where the hero had an economics degree... similarly weak reasons all round.
We put almost no thought into it really. That is changing now - when i meet my younger sisters friends they put a lot more thought into it. partly because of tuition fees.
I would point out though that our parents generation were almost all of the view that if they just got their kid into university they'd done a good job. Much like now they tell me to try to buy a crappy property somewhere i don't want to live with a massive mortgage because they remember how much they benefited from house prices rising.
I remember when choosing a degree subject being told by our headmaster to 'pick something you enjoy and are good at and employment will follow'. That was in 2006.
I'd be amazed if his successor still repeats that line!
Exactly the same advice i was given.
To be fair it's not awful... i have a few Asian friends who were bullied by parents into studying medicine who could have benefited from that.
For me the fundamental problem is at 18 you have very little idea of what jobs exist... And your teachers don't really know either.
In my workplace, the non-Brits (the majority!) are always bemused how many young Brits choose degrees without a lot of thought about what they will do afterwards.
To be fair, the UK is generally a lot more flexible in terms of career choices after uni, you can relatively easily change options, especially as we generally recognise the value of 'transferable skills'. France and many other european countries are much more rigid - you pick your degree subject and it will be very difficult to ever work in a different field unless you get another degree. So you have to give a lot more thought to it beforehand.
Talking of the ability to find (easily) paid work of a casual / gig nature for students: As a bum in Australia during a gap year I had the pleasure of using their CES - Casual Employment Service. You pitch up early (06:00), show proof of identity and take a numbered ticket and wait. People call in jobs. You don't know for how long or doing what. But the next ticket gets offered the next job. Take it or leave it. You end up cleaning for a week or stacking shelves or humping boxes of frozen prawns around an ice house or whatever. But if you pitch up you are very, very likely to get paid work the same day. I think this is a brilliant idea. We have alot of people who want to earn something and no easy and formally approved way for people with things needing to be done to find someone to do it.
The hard truth is that 18-24 year olds deserve to be ignored because many of them don't vote and they aren't interested in politics. Until they change this situation themselves (they are adults, after all), the political parties will just ignore them.
The hard truth is that this generation are getting it very tough. Unlike their parents who generally got free education they leave University with devalued degrees loaded with debts, they are finding it incredibly hard to find that first step on the employment ladder, they are finding that huge areas of the work force have been casualised with no obvious career plans and insufficient job security for a mortgage. They are going to be working their entire adult lives for a set of greedy bastards who thought they had the right to retire at 60-65 on index linked pensions and who spent £2trn more on themselves than they were willing to pay in taxes. The only upside I can see is that they get to choose the care homes!
Unless they are very intelligent and planning on a career where a degree is necessary young people are better off staying at home and learning a trade.
In fact a definition of stupidity might be the young person who gets a meaningless degree from a mediocre university and then moves to London expecting to be a success.
We are heading towards a two tier system, if we're not there already.
If you come from a rich background, you can - and should - go to uni, get a degree, move to London (where most if not all of the well paid grad jobs are), you can afford to intern for a year or two while the parents pay the rent, then a couple of years in they give you a nice deposit for a one or two bedroom flat, enabling you to stay in the city and rise up the corporate ladder and the housing ladder while paying down your whopping student debt.
Everyone else? You're stuffed. You can't afford to go to uni, forget about moving out of your home town, don't apply for grad jobs, you won't be able to afford to intern, and if by some miracle you do manage to make it you'll be saddled with 30-40k minimum student debt and good luck ever saving for a deposit for a house. Better to stay in your home town, learn a trade, know your place.
In years to come we may look back on the latter half of the 20th century as the most egalitarian time in human history. Now, it's be born rich or be buggered.
You seem to have the assumption that moving to London should be the optimum option.
It isn't and for most people never has been.
Its still possible in some of the country to learn a trade (either white collar or blue collar), get a job, save some money and afford a house.
The young need to learn to vote. Otherwise those who earn the money and who are pessimistic about the country's economic prospects will forever be outvoted by those who spend the money and who are optimistic about the country's economic prospects (unsurprisingly when they have a triple lock on their income).
While it is pat to talk about the young not voting and being ignored this is a very long term thing.
This is about how, fresh from the trauma of WW2 and the echo of WW1, the nation as a whole decided to give everything to the Boomers - I presume in the hope that it would never happen again.
Or they could just work while at university - and emerge with a hugely smaller loan or none at all. Parents don't come into it.
If tuition fees are 9k and you have to pay living expenses on top of that... What legal part time job is going to cover that? In many respects it makes sense to maximise a low cost loan and pay it off later. If you're doing a proper course you should be studying... Not working in a bar.
And what % of students study all through their holidays as is? I didn't find one night a week, weekends and a month in the summer stopped me graduating. If anything it helped. And it did put a few thousand in the bank. There are 24 hours in a day. Maybe spending fewer of them asleep or drunk would be good. Edinburgh was difficult for me from the 'trying not to be too drunk too much of the time' angle but there's plenty of time to do more than one thing in life at the same time. (As an aside we might compare UK student life cushiness with that of the Far East - now those guys are crazy)
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
If expansion didn't mean cookie cutter estates of poor quality houses with inadequate infrastructure and no provision for local shops, more people would be supportive.
There is no point making more and more boxes for people to live in unless you are also going to put in the doctors' surgeries, schools, roads, water supply, sewerage etc etc.
I can't imagine there are many new homes not connected to roads, water supply or sewers. I'm all in favour of building those things but tbh it's normally just an excuse for people who already have houses and don't want things to change.
Presumably the Lib-Dems, Labour and Greens are speaking for Millennials now and as they get older and more sensible (see right wing) the Conservatives will speak up for them?
Same as all other generations?
Churchill of course said 'if you are young and a conservative you have no heart, if you are old and not a conservative you have no head' or something similar
Surely you mean falsely attributed to Churchill by those who like to pop out this bit of triteness as if it was the wisdom of the ages?
The best way for the Government to support younger voters is to stop increasing the national debt which younger voters will have to pay off through taxation over their lifetime.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
No -- we need new jobs outside the south-east. Concentrating more and more of the economy in one part of the country is bad for social cohesion and (worse for some) is just too expensive, and will get more so as competition for limited resources becomes fiercer.
Decades of regional policy trying just that have ended in spectacular failure. Many industries, especially the best paying ones, like to cluster. Companies that locate where they locate besides of government bribes are rarely companies that you actually want.
However, one thing that would really move jobs outside the London commuter belt is giving people the right to work from home, except where the nature of the job obviously prohibits it. That would enable people to live in Orkney or Truro and work for a London-based firm. It would really spread the wealth around the country.
It would also solve the problem of packed commuter trains at morning peak.
A blast from the past who could well play an interesting role in IndyRef2 is Eric Joyce !! - I think as time goes on more SLAB figures will follow suite. His most recent piece is a more balanced look at Scottish education:
It isn't and for most people never has been. Its still possible in some of the country to learn a trade (either white collar or blue collar), get a job, save some money and afford a house. What's wrong with that ?
I'm kind of hoping the obsession with London continues from a personal point of view.
The young need to learn to vote. Otherwise those who earn the money and who are pessimistic about the country's economic prospects will forever be outvoted by those who spend the money and who are optimistic about the country's economic prospects (unsurprisingly when they have a triple lock on their income).
While it is pat to talk about the young not voting and being ignored this is a very long term thing.
This is about how, fresh from the trauma of WW2 and the echo of WW1, the nation as a whole decided to give everything to the Boomers - I presume in the hope that it would never happen again.
The baby boomers did not live through WW2 or WW1 of course so have not 'earned' special treatment because of their sacrifice.
Or they could just work while at university - and emerge with a hugely smaller loan or none at all. Parents don't come into it.
If tuition fees are 9k and you have to pay living expenses on top of that... What legal part time job is going to cover that? In many respects it makes sense to maximise a low cost loan and pay it off later. If you're doing a proper course you should be studying... Not working in a bar.
And what % of students study all through their holidays as is? I didn't find one night a week, weekends and a month in the summer stopped me graduating. If anything it helped. And it did put a few thousand in the bank. There are 24 hours in a day. Maybe spending fewer of them asleep or drunk would be good. Edinburgh was difficult for me from the 'trying not to be too drunk too much of the time' angle but there's plenty of time to do more than one thing in life at the same time. (As an aside we might compare UK student life cushiness with that of the Far East - now those guys are crazy)
I worked every holiday while at uni and to be honest i regret it and wish I'd worked less... I learnt useful skills working maintenance in a school but the money i made now seems insignificant. Now i actually wish I'd gone travelling and just racked up a bit more debt! Or spent three months over the summer learning to code or something like that.
I do not recognise the education system described nor do I enthuse about making children work.
You don't think the no platforming / safe spacing/ near closed shop lefty academia/Rhodes must fall type movement exists in our universities? Or you simply don't see it yourself and so all the stuff in the press is made up? And since when are university students children? It is possible, and in fact desirable, to combine study/sex-drugs-rock'n'roll/paid work while at uni. (For those for whom uni is a sensible life choice. Studying tosh at the University of Ex-poly Shitsville is likely not).
Apologies, had to pop out.
I'm afraid I don't recognise the situation you describe as widespread, it's just a sterotype the Right wing press likes to push to groom its readership. Of course, one or two political science departments might be caricatured as such, but the vast majority of kids pass through school and university without being indoctrinated by anybody. If inspiring children to think about, understand and challenge the world they live in is indoctrination, then we live in a pretty odd world.
I think you'll find many kids already hold down jobs whilst at University.
Amazing how much of the inter-generational angst could be avoided if this country just built enough houses in southern England, as it did throughout a good part of the 20th century.
Very true. And where i am from at least a big part of that is old people blocking expansion where they live.
What next , culling pensioners once they get to 70. Champing at the bit for war , want pensioners put down , what next can UK put on the agenda.
The young need to learn to vote. Otherwise those who earn the money and who are pessimistic about the country's economic prospects will forever be outvoted by those who spend the money and who are optimistic about the country's economic prospects (unsurprisingly when they have a triple lock on their income).
While it is pat to talk about the young not voting and being ignored this is a very long term thing.
This is about how, fresh from the trauma of WW2 and the echo of WW1, the nation as a whole decided to give everything to the Boomers - I presume in the hope that it would never happen again.
The baby boomers did not live through WW2 or WW1 of course so have not 'earned' special treatment because of their sacrifice.
Most of them worked a damn sight harder than the useless twonks nowadays. I could run rings round 3 or 4 graduates, they are useless. A bit of hard work would finish them off.
Comments
If you come from a rich background, you can - and should - go to uni, get a degree, move to London (where most if not all of the well paid grad jobs are), you can afford to intern for a year or two while the parents pay the rent, then a couple of years in they give you a nice deposit for a one or two bedroom flat, enabling you to stay in the city and rise up the corporate ladder and the housing ladder while paying down your whopping student debt.
Everyone else? You're stuffed. You can't afford to go to uni, forget about moving out of your home town, don't apply for grad jobs, you won't be able to afford to intern, and if by some miracle you do manage to make it you'll be saddled with 30-40k minimum student debt and good luck ever saving for a deposit for a house. Better to stay in your home town, learn a trade, know your place.
In years to come we may look back on the latter half of the 20th century as the most egalitarian time in human history. Now, it's be born rich or be buggered.
http://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings/results#.WOIIHVKQ2WY
Doesn't make pretty reading....
The construction industry is an utter disgrace.
www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/02/new-build-homes-reputation-problems-developers
My friends from poorer backgrounds focused on corporate giants at university who gave them interest free loans to get set up in London, who had well paid internships etc... Very competitive to get but in a way more egalitarian.
But if you want to intern for cancer research or a newspaper or something like that you need savings or a free place to stay.
There is no point making more and more boxes for people to live in unless you are also going to put in the doctors' surgeries, schools, roads, water supply, sewerage etc etc.
If you're doing a proper course you should be studying... Not working in a bar.
As a bum in Australia during a gap year I had the pleasure of using their CES - Casual Employment Service. You pitch up early (06:00), show proof of identity and take a numbered ticket and wait. People call in jobs. You don't know for how long or doing what. But the next ticket gets offered the next job. Take it or leave it. You end up cleaning for a week or stacking shelves or humping boxes of frozen prawns around an ice house or whatever. But if you pitch up you are very, very likely to get paid work the same day. I think this is a brilliant idea. We have alot of people who want to earn something and no easy and formally approved way for people with things needing to be done to find someone to do it.
It isn't and for most people never has been.
Its still possible in some of the country to learn a trade (either white collar or blue collar), get a job, save some money and afford a house.
What's wrong with that ?
https://twitter.com/bengoldacre/status/570174396658266112
This is about how, fresh from the trauma of WW2 and the echo of WW1, the nation as a whole decided to give everything to the Boomers - I presume in the hope that it would never happen again.
https://twitter.com/mailonline/status/848808548528246785
https://storage.googleapis.com/en-marche-fr/COMMUNICATION/Programme-Emmanuel-Macron.pdf
(As an aside we might compare UK student life cushiness with that of the Far East - now those guys are crazy)
I'm all in favour of building those things but tbh it's normally just an excuse for people who already have houses and don't want things to change.
However, one thing that would really move jobs outside the London commuter belt is giving people the right to work from home, except where the nature of the job obviously prohibits it. That would enable people to live in Orkney or Truro and work for a London-based firm. It would really spread the wealth around the country.
It would also solve the problem of packed commuter trains at morning peak.
http://www.ericjoyce.co.uk/2017/04/education-the-daily-mail-lies-through-misdirection-must-scottish-labour-really-do-the-same/
NEW THREAD
The baby boomers did not live through WW2 or WW1 of course so have not 'earned' special treatment because of their sacrifice.
I'm afraid I don't recognise the situation you describe as widespread, it's just a sterotype the Right wing press likes to push to groom its readership. Of course, one or two political science departments might be caricatured as such, but the vast majority of kids pass through school and university without being indoctrinated by anybody. If inspiring children to think about, understand and challenge the world they live in is indoctrination, then we live in a pretty odd world.
I think you'll find many kids already hold down jobs whilst at University.