Author Archives: Philip Bushill-Matthews

Young people deserve a better future

By Philip Bushill-Matthews | Fri 30th October 2020 - 6:02 pm

I joined the Conservative Party in the early 1970s at the time of the first referendum, and from 1999 served for ten years as an MEP. Last year, after increasing unease at the Party’s lurch to the Right, I joined the Liberal Democrats where I instantly felt at home. More Tories will surely follow, especially as so many are not renewing their membership given the clumsiness of the cabal currently at the top.

Conservatives are not the only ones to be unhappy: young people are being disadvantaged and even damaged by the triply toxic cocktail of Covid plus Boris Johnson plus Gavin Williamson.

Young people share the same aspirations my generation had for a decent job, an affordable home, and the chance to broaden their personal horizons – a future they could look forward to with confidence rather than despair.

However, today they are facing a job market which is bleak at best. Help to Buy is of little help to those in the midlands and north where more jobs are being lost, and home ownership may be a millstone to negative equity rather than a ladder to prosperity. The young in particular need help with reasonable rents. Big companies conveniently declare themselves bankrupt to renegotiate their rents downwards, but the young have no such options.