Politicians have jilted a generation – it’s wrong to say that young people have never had it so good

Is there something outrageous about Britain’s younger generations complaining that society is failing them? That’s the question posed by the title of a forthcoming Spectator debate, but I get the impression that some in this magazine’s stable already have an answer.

In 2011, one writer, senior in both senses, decried chippy youngsters as selling ‘the politics of envy’. Another – the editor – called those who rabbit on about youth unemployment, housing problems and tuition fees ‘generational jihadists’. In 2010, I co-wrote a book called Jilted Generation: How Britain has bankrupted its youth, so I guess that Fraser Nelson was talking about me. I have been called worse names – but not as wittily. How nice it is to make trouble.

I’ll be doing it again at the June debate. First, I will argue that both Labour and the Coalition governments have sneakily borrowed against the future earnings of the young to swell their coffers and keep taxes lower today.