Another day, another controversial new announcement from a Conservative campaign keen to show that it has new ideas. Today, it is the so-called ‘Triple Lock Plus’, which will mean that, should the Tories get back in, pensioners’ tax-free allowance will automatically increase in line with the highest of wages, earnings, or 2.5 per cent. The state pension will never be taxed. They claim it would give pensioners a tax cut of almost £300 per year by the end of the next parliament.
Younger people expect a quid pro quo from the government, and from older people who have had it pretty good.
This follows the national service announcement, and both in conjunction have led to criticisms that the Conservatives are neglecting the young at the expense of a core vote of older people. Why, the question is being asked, should one group get a tax cut while the other are being made to do free labour?
It’s hard to argue with this conclusion when these two announcements are taken together. Back in 2008, when David Cameron led the Tories, the party slogan was: ‘We’re all in this together’. It was a distillation of everything from Burke’s partnership between ‘those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born’, Disraeli’s ‘one nation’, and even Cicero’s ‘concordia ordinum’ – harmony between social classes. When the young seem to be getting such a bum deal from today’s Conservative party (especially after being locked away for an illness that was never going to kill them, and with the impossibility of owning a home), it is fair for people to think that the party’s priorities have changed.
Unlike many conservatives, I am in favour the new national service. There are some who have said that it is tantamount to indentured servitude, and until recent years I would have agreed. But today’s Britain is a low-trust, atomised, and fractured society – some cross between a WeWork shared office space, an Airbnb and a motorway service station. Our captured institutions tell young people that the UK is blighted by legacies of empire. ‘Diversity and inclusion’ officers give this a thin patina of ‘authority’.
By beginning to show young people that their rights come with responsibilities, both to one another and to their country, the Tories want to make them see that the highest calling is to serve others with your peers. This is all the more important given the record high immigration of recent years. We need active attempts to help newcomers assimilate.
In return, younger people expect a quid pro quo from the government, and from older people who have had it pretty good. The illiberal smoking ban should be dropped, and more houses should be built so the next generation can afford them. These are obvious ways the state can uphold its end of the bargain. If older people are to be continually preferred through this new quadruple lock, and no new homes are built, then the problem of intergenerational unfairness will grow, and fester, and cause great age-related resentment in our society.
This is especially true given the current price of our unfunded obligations promised to the retired. The Adam Smith Institute has calculated that the state pension itself will become fiscally unsustainable as early as 2035 – the next parliament but one. If the economics doesn’t scare the Tories enough, what about the fact that more under 30s intend to vote for the Greens than the Conservatives? Bring on national service, yes, but recognise that the elderly need to play their part as well. We really do need to be in this together.
Comments