Who would be a young Brit these days? Apparently they are a bunch of lazy, feckless, idle, unpatriotic, soft, computer game obsessed, wimps. That explains why the Armed Forces face a recruitment crisis, apparently.
Or you can look at it from another angle.
Yesterday my X feed was full of stories about the terrible state of accommodation for the Armed Forces, including pictures of collapsing ceilings and leaking roofs, property that was privatised by one Michael Portillo I believe and which has earned billions for its new owners. The pay of the Armed Forces has not kept up with inflation and shortages of equipment and people mean that tours of duty are longer and more frequent. The RN in particular is rapidly running out of people willing to spend months at a time in submarines.
Meanwhile we are constantly told that we have to give tax cuts and tax breaks to billionaire “patriots”, some of whom own the very papers which lambast the young, or they will abandon this country and run off to somewhere else. Where they can contribute small amounts of what tax they do pay to the defence of Monaco or Panama.
Then, of course, if you want to get on the housing ladder, have children, and a pension you need to earn a small fortune by your 30’s, not something you can do in the Army.
The young can also see that this is going to get worse as an ageing population means more tax on those of a working age to maintain the elderly. The very elderly who own the housing wealth, are Nimbys, voted for Brexit and never served a day in the Boy Scouts, let alone anything else.
While the political leadership of the government is rammed with people who made their millions in the City, or in the case of the Defence Secretary selling get rich quick schemes.
Strange that the very party that always tells us that the market cannot be bucked and wealth must be worshipped don’t know that better pay and conditions improves recruitment. They might also want to know that leading by example works, that putting Russians and tax exiles in parliament is not good for moral, and starving the armed forces of equipment they need to fight is suicidal.
But no doubt it is the patriotism of the young that is the problem, just making them sing the National Anthem every morning at school is the answer. Stand easy.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
Your frustration with the corruption & stupidity of the Tories is reaching soaring heights of poetic rage. This should be a video blog & go viral!
Do you really buy this intergenerational, "the elderly took all the wealth" argument though Jonty? Of course the elderly are more wealthy on average than the young because they have been accumulating the stuff for a lot longer. But that wealth is far from evenly spread. The problems of the young are not because the elderly have a boot on their heads but because of poor policy by successive governments over economic planning, finance, education housing and immigration, the latter in the sense that expanded provision was needed, to meet a growing population but not provided - all underpinned by the stupid idea of free market efficiency. Its better to play the ball and not the man.