Why is politics creating so much intergenerational conflict?

You only have to pick up a newspaper to feel that there is some kind of war of persecution going on towards the youth of this nation.  In the last week Labour’s Rachel Reeves announced that she believes older people who have worked for many years deserve higher benefits than young claimants which seems strange for a party that believes in equality. While David Cameron has announced that Young people out of work, education or training for six months will have to do unpaid community work to get benefits.

Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than the rest of the population. The number of people aged 16-24 who are not in full-time education or employment has increased by 8,000 over the last quarter. With 498,000 in that age group without a job. Their unemployment rate is 14.4%, while the overall unemployment rate now stands at 5.7% of the total working population.

So why do our politicians seem to systematically create policy to disadvantage young people. In the last government we have seen the Introduction of top up fees for university; cutting of education budgets; reducing funds for children’s centres and ending the child trust fund. Working age benefits have been capped, child benefit to be means tested the list goes on. They have even changed the voting system to individually register voters has a disproportionate impact on more transient young people. If the was a generational ladder to raise this government has well and truly tucked it out of reach, locked it up and thrown away the key.

This ‘conspiracy’ against the youth is further compounded by an obvious bias towards policies that benefit older generations. To contrast we have seen the pensioner bond scheme extended; early access to annuities and the triple lock on pensions kept. While the winter fuel benefit which is surely the most obvious of low hanging cuts to make is left untouched. All this is further compounded by a back drop of rising house prices.

It is not difficult to argue that the political establishment seems to favours the old. But it is difficult to understand why the youth don’t react. The reason I believe is this happens over relatively long periods of time. Cuts are disproportionately impacting on young people but the collective impact is never clear. This drip drip drip of policy announcement is leading to increase levels of voter apathy and declining levels of voting. Leaving a sense of ‘What has politics ever done for us’ in the youth of today.

Figures show that 51.8% of those aged 18-24 and 57.3% of those aged 25-34 voted in the 2010 General Election. Contrast that with the pensioners: 74.7% of those over 65 voted in the same election. And the gap has grown. In 1992, 67% of those aged 18-24 and 77% of those aged 25-34 could be bothered to turn out, against 79% over 65 years.

Political parties are finding it difficult to develop policies with broad based appeal. Politicians are looking to the advertising industry to benefit from increase in advances in audience segmentation to target policies at voting audiences then coupled with focus groups to test them. This consumerist approach to selecting policies is only leading to the increase in this apparent intergenerational conflict. With restricted budgets for new policies, political parties want to target audiences with the highest potential to turn them to votes. This consumerist approach is only going to further fragmentation voters and alienate youth.

If we move beyond traditional political loyalties, this is not a problem for parties of the right as older people are more supportive of their policies. For example, to cap immigration or resist liberal cultural changes towards homosexuality and are generally more sceptical about Europe. However, younger people are way more receptive for progressive polices, socially liberal and support policies such as same sex marriage. The problem for the political parties is that the generational divide coincides with divisions over the socio-cultural and economic evolution of Britain over the last forty years.

Historically this worked well for the Lib Dems whose growing support base mapped a progressive view who found support in their youth and remained loyal through the 90s up to 2010. Much of this support base has been eroded during their time in the coalition due to support for policies liker tuition fees and support for the Tories programme of austerity. The Greens are now well positioned to benefit from this failure of  trust. It also explains the Lib Dems decision to target soft conservative votes not progressive left in the upcoming election.

Labour and Tories will continue to be torn between long term decline in core vote and short term appeal to core older votes. Disproportionately opting for policies to keeping older generations happy. For UKIP this is a no brainer in demographic terms as their policies attract the old and drive away the young.

Labour has focused on the cost of living crisis and trying to find policies where the economic problems of different generations converge. This does not deal with the existing inequality as to do so would upset older generations of core vote. The Conservatives who appear to be following a core vote policy which is disproportionately older and of people of higher economic mobility which means short term intergenerational issues are irrelevant.

Conservatives focus on the ‘civilising effect’ of people ability to invest in property. Low interest rates help people with getting on the housing ladder but also make saving within any age group difficult. Access to pension annuities means older people are more likely to invest in property which helps increase house prices but means more houses available for rent and more competition to buy. If you have money you can still make more.

So what would policies to reverse this need to do? There is a classic redistribution approach like introducing higher council tax bands or mansion tax to help incentivise house building while look for ways to support renters such as rent caps. This will help some young get on the housing ladder and take from older people who dominate UK household capital wealth.

Real structural changes need to happen. As long as young people fail to get adequate training and more and better jobs; they are struggling to pay rent and get on the housing ladder; nothing will change. Long-term commitment to the state pension will help build confidence. Removal of the winter fuel payment will help giving to local government to fund more targeted services for fuel poor or grants for householders to use local companies to deliver high quality insulation programmes. Maybe even this could be done instead of quantative easing.

What the disadvantaged youth really need is targeted services, more skills and training and a government that is really committed to future proofing policies and investing in young people. Double paternity leave is a good start, increasing minimum wage is good but a living wage would be better as would free childcare so parents can afford to work.

It looks unlikely that this polarisation will end soon without any major rebalancing of fairness between generations proposed by any party.  Instead this division will continue to drive fragmentation of British politics and present opportunities for smaller parties. The Greens are building their appeal with young, socially liberal, well-educated voters struggling within the British economy. At the other end, UKIP is winning older, socially conservative, less educated voters across England

So what am I looking for in manifestos? – Obviously a strong focus on climate and the environment which evidently aims to address intergenerational equity. I would like to see the same for social policy with some of the above policies mentioned. I am still waiting to see a political party with an economics plan that will also deliver truly long term sustainable economy rebalanced not just geographically but also intergenerationally.

This national energy crunch needs a Victorian solution

Too much of the debate we hear around energy feels like rehashing old argument so I thought I would see what a really old argument looks like.

Take a trip back to Victorian times and what did we see? In a period of science and social progress, dynamic local people came together to lead the way in the creation of public utilities. This was in response to public health issues such as a lack of access to clean water and poor sanitation in their dirty, crowded streets. But also a time of mass industrialisation and the need for new sources of power at a cost people could afford.

Many of the civic organisations looked to establish their own solutions and to power and sanitation. Owned locally for the benefit of local people and local businesses. Manchester corporation developed reservoirs and water infrastructure in the peak district for the benefit of urban populations delivering huge advances in public health. Even our country houses there were great practitioners in these new technologies lived and developed their applications. For example, the water pump at Uppark – a prototype later used to pump clean water in London – or the use of hydroelectricity and the first ever electric light bulbs at Cragside – now used in houses the world over.

These early spirit of innovation led to civic companies which were then the basis of our local authorities and subsequent roots of the service provision a local democracy; rooted in the community they served accountable to the people who used them. But over time as generations passed these services were first nationalised in the name of efficiency and then privatised and in doing so accountability shifted further from the people they were set up for.

While we have hopefully moved away from the days when sewage water flowed past our front door, now communities are wading through different problems. Today’s mire is one of rising fuel and food prices and lowering income. Never has there been a time when people were so far from control over the means of producing light, heat and electricity generation. Control of our energy, water and host of other services has never felt so far way where decisions are made in board rooms for distant corporations in faraway lands.

How can people regain control of local resources that they need at a price they can afford. Even our own government is dismally failed to get energy companies to reduce their bills by a few pounds. However it really doesn’t have to be this way. New renewable technology means our energy generation can again be local.

It is now increasingly possible to produce more and more of the energy we need locally. This not only reduces their environmental impact but also increases communities own resilience to energy price rises and future blackouts. We don’t need to be consumers when we can be citizens. Return on any investment that can be better spent on further schemes. The benefit of saving money on bills can be reinvested in the local economy.  Return on investment should not be defined by profits for shareholders of a faraway multinational but the increased economic, social and environmental resilience in communities.

It does not need to stop with individual communities; local authorities have a role too, most individuals still don’t have the capital to grow their own energy. That is why I believe now is the time again for civic action.  Local Authorities need to step up an help bring communities need to come together. Facilitating or just encouraging all communities  to develop their own locally owned energy companies, run as social enterprises, cooperatives or even set up as third party ventures with local businesses.

Local Government is under massive financial pressure but this is about new ways of thinking not just running everything. This model will help develop new local economies, deliver district heating schemes and make significant progress on home energy efficiency. It will put hydro back in our rivers and solar on our roofs. It will mean that our local woods are valued as a source of sustainable biomass once again for heating local homes, and grass cuttings from our parks and food waste from our kitchens will become biogas. All of these opportunities contribute to local energy or supply and all can help lead to greater civic involvement, closer relationships with nature and healthier lives as we value our open spaces as resources for public good.

In Germany we are already seeing 15% of all renewable electricity community owned. Given the right policy framework, we believe that this success can be replicated in the UK. Local Government and businesses can also invest their own pension funds and shares in local energy generation. Not only because it is the right thing to do but because it makes good business sense.

Unfortunately it is still near impossible for local people to be able to directly buy the energy from community schemes. Even the government’s license light is overly complicated and easier to sell the energy through a PPA to an existing energy provider. Only when people can make the direct connection between the energy that is built locally and the electricity they use, will we fully unlock the potential of community energy, people investing directly in their services and the potential for securing a wealth of local economic, social and environmental benefits.

A child learns what he lives

 

 

If a child lives with criticism
He learns to condemn
If a child lives with hostility
He learns to fight
If a child lives with ridicule
He learns to be shy
If a child lives with shame
He learns to feel guilt
BUT
If a child lives with tolerance
He learns to be patient
If a child lives with encouragement
He learns confidence
If a child lives with fairness
He learns justice
If a child lives with security
He learns to have faith
if a child lives with approval
He learns to like himself
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship
He learns to find love in the world.

Are you a consumer or a citizen?

As a society is now the it time for us to put limits on the advertising industry?

As an individual it is also  a time for us to break out of the story of being a consumer and open our eyes to the real world we live in?

Jon Alexander’s passionate and fantastic challenge to advertising industries attempts to make everyone see the world through a consumer lens.

 

 

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