The Tories’ biggest problem at the next election? Generation Rent

The government is currently busying itself trying to win retrospective Commons votes on Theresa May’s Syria intervention and clearing up the Home Office’s Windrush mess. But should they have time for some morning reading, today’s Resolution Foundation research on millenials’ property prospects ought to give cause for alarm.

The think tank predicts that one in three millennials will never own their own home. Instead, they will have to live – and potentially raise families – in privately rented accommodation throughout their lives. And that’s before we get to what happens when they stop working and rely on a pension. What’s more, half of current UK 20-35-year-olds are expected to be renting in their 40s.

This has big implications for the Conservative party. The most existential threat facing the Conservative party is the death of the dream of property ownership. It’s long been relied upon in Tory circles that although younger voters lean left, they tend to verge right once they get on the property ladder.