As a soggy Rishi Sunak was almost literally drowned out by the New Labour anthem “Things Can Only Get Better” on the steps of Downing Street last week, I began to wonder why the Conservative Party has never coalesced around an optimistic anthem of its own in quite the same way. If it did, what song would it be? Then it hit me: “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma” by the St Winifred’s School Choir would be the perfect choice.
It would be consistent with the party’s choices over the last 14 years in office, prioritising pensioners over working-age people at every turn — with the net effect of tax and benefit policy changes since 2010 putting pensioners £2,000 a year ahead of those below 66 years of age. Meanwhile, the postwar promise of a home of one’s own for those who work hard and do the right thing has been broken for Britain’s youth for over a decade.
New depths of the pork barrel were scraped last night when the Government announced plans to tighten the triple-lock pension thumbscrews even further, uprating the tax-free allowance for pensioners by the highest of 2.5%, earnings or inflation. For workers, no such luck — another shift in the salt mines will help bring out the flavour of the pensioners’ pork.
If there is one thing that links the incoherent mishmash of policies that Sunak has announced since becoming prime minister, it is a disregard for young people and a pervasive disinterest in tomorrow. Transport infrastructure for the future? Cancelled. The labour of 18-year-olds? Free, to be “volunteered” for the state in the form of national service. The liberty as a grown adult to choose to buy and consume a cigarette, even if it might harm you? Gone.
Sunak and the Tories increasingly resemble the inverse of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, taking cash and liberty from the young to give to the elderly. Alongside the national service policy announced at the weekend, it speaks to a party that hasn’t just given up on the young ever voting Conservative — it’s as if it actively wants to punish them.
If the party wants a new generation of patriotic youth who believe in service for their country, why not set out a genuine retail offer? Forget national service; give young people an improvement in living standards and a country that fights for them. Why should they be compelled to work for free for a state that has failed their needs so comprehensively?
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