The working age population of the UK voted in favour of Labour's transformative manifesto, but the Tories were saved from defeat by a massive turnout of hard-right pensioners who want even more Tory wage repression imposed on UK workers because they're retired and it just doesn't bother them.
Even hopelessly out-of-touch Tories can see that this pensioner-reliance is totally unsustainable in the long-term, but the solutions they're offering are absolutely absurd, and none more so than the ludicrous nonsense proposed by the former Tory MP John Wheeler.
In a blog post entitled "The Conservatives need fresh thinking and new policies to help the young" Wheeler correctly identifies that the Tories have become absolutely toxic amongst the under-40s, but his unbelievably patronising attitude and his absurd solution to this Tory problem are so ridiculously out of touch with reality it's laughable.
Here's what he wrote:
Where the Party has failed is with so many under the age of 40. In the next election, the campaign must engage with this generation; one that does not read the print media, or much bother with the television news, but seems to believe anything on Facebook or twitter. That is where the argument about the non existent forest of money trees must be won.
Before then, it will be essential to address the widespread concerns that many have as to student debt, unaffordable housing, and a low wage economy. Lots can be done by the Treasury. Parents and grandparents with property and assets are sometimes in a position to make gifts of cash but this is limited to £3,000 a year. Why not make this £20,000?The idea that the under-40s "believe anything on Facebook or Twitter" is such patronising drivel it's unreal.
It's beyond obvious that social media users don't just "believe anything" they see, because otherwise we'd all have been suckered in by the unprecedented Tory efforts to buy social media popularity by spamming their dishonest dark ads all over our social media platforms for the entire 2017 General Election campaign wouldn't we?
Wheeler then moves on from dismissing all under-40s as a bunch of hopelessly gullible fuckwits to promoting the idea that we can all be won over with a campaign of economically illiterate baby talk about magic money trees, as if it's Labour's costed manifesto that plucked cash out of nowhere rather than Theresa May's £1 billion bung for the DUP to buy the Westminster votes of their 10 MPs.
Wheeler's assumption that we're all just a bunch of hopelessly gullible idiots who can be easily mislead with a load of demeaning economic idiot fodder about magic money trees isn't even the worst of it, just look at his proposed solution.
There are loads of policies that the Tories could steal off Labour to court the under-40 vote.
They could scrap tuition fees and write off student debts; they could invest in technical colleges and skills training; they could ban exploitative Zero Hours Contracts; they could properly regulate the rental market; they could scrap the punitive ban on young people claiming in-work social security like Housing Benefit; they could scrap their exploitative "workfare" scams; they could increase the minimum wage for young people; they could bring back the university grants and NHS bursaries that Theresa May scrapped; they could invest in social housing; they could begin supporting the progressive and green values favoured by the younger generations ...
But no. Wheeler's proposed solution is to offer a huge tax handout to the super-wealthy so that they can evade Inheritance Tax by siphoning £20,000 per year to their kids tax free!
What kind of bizarre bubble of wealth and privilege does John Wheeler live in where regular under-40s all have a wealthy relative who is rich enough (and actually willing to) shower them in cash to the tune of £20k a year?
The idea that regular under-40s have parents or grandparents wealthy enough to bankroll us to the tune of £20,000 per year is absolutely laughable.
What's more it's a fucking insult. Even if we did have parents wealthy enough to bankroll our lifestyles like that, we don't want a system of hereditary handouts, we just want the same kinds of opportunities that previous generations had: Stuff like half-decent houses that we can actually afford to buy or rent, stable employment with wages that aren't continually eroded away by inflation, and the right to debt-free education so that we can contribute more to society by developing our skills ... You know: The stuff that Wheeler's generation completely took for granted when they were under-40.
Another of Wheeler's proposed policies is a tax-free £20,000 per year ISA for the young!
The idea that we all have a spare £20,000 per year kicking around to stuff into tax-free ISAs is another demonstration of how shockingly out of touch these Tory elitists are.
The starting salary of nurses, police officers, teachers and fire fighters is around £20,000 per year and that's before they pay Income Tax and National Insurance contributions!
Public sector workers haven't had a real pay rise in seven years thanks to the Tory campaign of wage repression, and now these deluded Tory buffoons think they can buy back their votes by saying we'll let your mummy and daddy give you £20,000 per year so you can stick it all in a tax free ISA!
If calling us thick, patronising us with sub-juvenile economic idiot fodder, and proposing a scheme to allow the super-rich to evade Inheritance Tax by gradually siphoning their wealth to their kids in £20,000 per year lumps to stick into tax free ISAs is the Tory blueprint for winning back support amongst regular under-40s, then these shockingly out-of-touch buffoons are clearly even more doomed than the polling data suggests.
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