Journalist Victoria Derbyshire put it to ex-transport minister Mark Harper: “Look at what you’re doing to young people. You’re going to force them to do National Service, you’ve tripled their tuition fees. You froze the threshold at which they have to start paying back their student loan. You’ve extended the student loan repayment terms from 30 to 40 years, meaning many graduates will be paying off their debts in their 60s. You’ve invested only a third of what was recommended by the ‘catch-up tsar’ to help kids catch up after the pandemic. Rents rose nearly 9% in the last year. And houses at their most expensive since 1876. That’s why I ask: have the Tories got a problem with young people?” Mark’s response after awkwardly sipping some water: “No, not at all.”
But with Keir Starmer’s pitch to voters being a change to ‘stability’, will any of these and all the other pressing issues facing young people be solved by sticking in the narrow lane penned in by ‘the markets’?
The situation facing young people is dire – forced to pay the price for capitalism’s failings. All the main parties in parliament are wedded to the capitalist system and all its ills – low pay, crap housing and climate destruction. So join a party that does have a problem with the capitalist system itself and join the fight for socialism.
