- Real wages are down – so they can take full advantage of average standards of living lower than they were ten years ago
- Personal debts are at record levels – even the government is charging 6% a year on student loans of tens of thousands of pounds and young people also have the wonderfully helpful option of legalised loan sharks readily on hand willing and able to charge them 100% a year and more.
- Rents are sky high – so they can have all the feeling of security that comes with a 6 month tenancy
- They no longer need to worry about free movement across Europe – or all those lost opportunities.
- They are free to breathe in the worst air pollution for decades
- They are free to throw away plastic bottles with every confidence that plenty will end up floating round the ocean years from now and young people can also enjoy eating microplastics along with their seafood
- They can bask in the warmest climate in human history and watch disaster weather on the nightly news.
- They no longer need to worry about job security as that has already gone for the millions of them on zero hours contracts or compulsory self-employment.
- They don’t need to worry about the risk of another giant financial crash like the 2008 one. After all government has long since stopped worrying about the causes and the risk so why should anyone else worry
- He’s given away billions to existing home owners by abolishing stamp duty and putting up the price of buying a home.
- He’s given away billions to oil and gas companies in the North Sea
- He’s given away billions to property developers so that they can wreck our communities by building houses young people on green land whilst leaving inner city housing in the regions to decay.
- He’s given away £3 billion already on preparing for Brexit but still hasn’t worked out where the customs posts are going on the island of Ireland, how he is going to pay for staffing them or where the lorries will park in Dover
- He’s proudly declared that he is giving young people a rail card to help with their costs of getting to work – then failed to advertise the fact that it is only available for them at off peak times
- He’s given up on investing in public sector housing, or helping homes to afford to generate their own electricity or providing the health service with enough money to give its staff a pay rise.
- He’s given nurses, teachers, police officers and doctors a promise that they might get a pay rise almost big enough to keep up with inflation at some stage – provided they don’t mind the money for it coming from the people they took the job on to help
- Oh and he is the last in a long line of Chancellors who have given the banks that got us into this mess £400 billion of free money so they can carry on with the selfish, greedy and arrogant behaviour that produced the crash that has done so much damage to other people’s lives for the past 10 years.
Alternatively, if you live in the real world, something is going badly wrong in the UK and a lot of young people are right in the firing line. We are heading at full steam for a hard crash out of our single biggest market without any real plan of action, any proper preparation or any serious democratic control by Parliament over what replaces our existing rights. We have a government that is in chaos and an opposition that is cheering on Brexit and claiming it can transform it into a good thing for working people.
What could possibly go wrong? Who could possibly hope for more? Why on earth do some of us waste out time arguing about the importance of crazy things such as sustainable economies, sustainable environments, and economic policies which serve the needs of ordinary people?
Answers please via the ballot box in the May local elections and via every other opportunity you can find!