The Tories are taking from the young to pay for the old

To understand the Conservative party’s approach to government, it’s useful to think of there being two Britains. This is something British people love to do; we divide the country into North and South, rich and poor, London and not. The division that matters for the Conservatives, however, is a little different. It’s not a matter of economics or geography, but age. It’s the divide between Old Britain and Young Britain.

The Conservative electoral strategy is simple and straightforward: it will do whatever it needs to win the votes of Old Britain, and it will do so at the cost of Young Britain. You can see this in every economic decision taken over the last decade of Conservative rule; working-age benefits have been cut even as the triple lock boosts pensions. Planning reforms which would have cut rents for young people have been shelved to preserve the prices of assets held by the old.