Vicky Spratt
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I wondered whether actually young people were connecting that to their housing situation as well rather than drawing it out on its own.
But I was really struck by the fact that immigration came in the top three concerns because I would have expected that to be something that older people over-indexed on.
But one thing about this generation is they're very worried about their own situations for understandable reasons.
And that might be leading to quite an individualized outlook.
And that tells you, I think, a little bit about, of course, we've not seen the enormous swing to reform amongst young men that was being reported a couple of years ago.
But it is true that some young people have gone to reform.
I was at Reform Party Conference in Birmingham last year
interviewing young reform councillors.
And their concerns about migration, immigration policy as a whole, were very much in the vein of people coming to take the jobs that we need.
And I think we could underestimate the impact that that issue has also had on a younger demographic.
I think that's the challenge that the current government have got.
And frankly, anybody who fills their shoes in number 10 after this, it's not the case that there are quick fixes and silver bullets, right?
We have a problem with growth, even though the figures were a bit better at the start of the year.
We need to grow the economy.
We need to look at our jobs market.
We have a problem that's been building, as we've just discussed for a really long time with housing.
And this idea that you could just wave a magic wand, abolish landlords to borrow a Green Party policy and abolish freeholders and redistribute the wealth and everything would be okay is for the birds.
But at the same time, when I'm traveling around speaking to young people who frankly like
cannot visualize their life in 10 years time, 25 years old.
And they don't know what the milestones of adulthood are anymore because they can't necessarily build their own life.