2.) Attacked the young.

Why do the Conservatives hate the young?

Today's youth of the UK face the usual challenges of growing up; exam stress, puberty, sourcing booze before being 18 and so on, but there is now have another issue to face: A government that seems to actively despise us.

Since coming to power in 2010, the Conservatives have made it clear that they are not a party of the younger generation. Immediately tuition fees for University were trebled to £9000 per year, a move that has saddled thousands upon thousands of students with debt.

     Whether this is a middle-finger to the 18-24 age bracket who do not tend to vote Conservative, or a reflection of the low voter turnout amongst young people which means that it is not politically costly to hammer us like this, I don't know. What I do know is that the Conservatives have rolled out an unprecedented attack on young people, despite their meaningless rhetoric of "giving people security at every stage of their lives."

• Tuition fees

As mentioned above, University now costs £9000 a year in England. This pains any student who sees how the Scottish, German, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish governments to name a few, provide free University education because they believe an educated society is a better society. Bloody hippies. Instead the Conservatives, along with the 'student-friendly' Liberal Democrats, decided to treble the amount of debt we would put ourselves in for our courses.

• Student Grants

Student grants used to be money given to students from less well-off backgrounds, in order to help pay for accommodation, books etc. that their parents couldn't afford to pay for. This put these students on a level playing field with those whose parents could afford to contribute. Although the means-tested system wasn't perfect, and some people did struggle, the basic principle was correct.

    The Conservatives scrapped grants, and replaced them with a loan. This results in students without the financial help of parents having to take out a larger loan than their peers, and take on the extra debt to get to the same place. Clearly a regressive, unfair policy that hits poorer students.

• Housing

The Conservatives are overseeing a housing market that has the odds stacked against young people in so many ways:

Right to buy was a policy first introduced by Thatcher, and carried on by Cameron's government. The original intention was to increase home ownership, but the reality of this mass sell off of government housing was to concentrate power in the hands of private landlords. 40% of the housing sold off has ended up being rented out, with the son of Thatcher's housing minister owning over 40 ex-council houses. 

      Decades after this policy begun, the rate of home ownership has collapsed, and there are now 11,000,000 people privately renting. A policy that is a failure on its own terms, currently being pushed with a renewed vigour by Cameron. 

     It has pushed house prices up, pricing young people out the housing market by making it extremely difficult to get a foot on the property ladder. 

Housing benefit has been taken away from 18-21 year olds, meaning that the money used to help with extortionate rents has been taken away. In a country where rents have increased by 12% in the last year, taking away this assistance is cruel. It will result in more young people having to stay at home with parents, and if this is not an option they'll be on the streets. With 52% of homeless people being under the age of 25, this is just another step in the wrong direction.

The government has refused to implement any form of Rent Controls, despite the alarming levels of rent affecting millions of people, from students to single parents. Scotland, Germany, France and the Netherlands all utilise some form of rent control to stop rip off rents, but our government is much happier to sit back and repeat the dogma that we cannot interfere with the market. 

• No 'Living Wage'

In the Summer budget, the chancellor purported to introduce a living wage to the UK. Although it is important to remember that his changes to tax credits actually ripped a hole in the bottom of the pay packets he was topping up, and the new living wage will not be enough for workers to live on.

    Osborne quickly slammed the door shut on the young whilst unveiling this policy, and the new minimum wage only applies to those above the age of 25. I can't quite see the logic that results in a 24 year old, working, paying for rent, bills, food etc. needing less money than a similar 25 year old, & it just results in it being another policy that forgets the young. 

• Failure to act on Climate Change

Faced with the rather pressing issue of our planet rapidly heating up, the young could be forgiven for wanting the government to maybe do something to protect the planet that we will inherit. Instead, they have scrapped subsidies for renewable energy, given a fast track for Fracking, and given up on plans for all houses to be Carbon-Neutral. I've written about the governments failure on climate change in more detail here.

It's safe to say that Tory Britain is not a Britain that has the best interests of the young at heart.

1.) Taken us backwards on Climate change

When Cameron first came to power in 2010, he promised that his government would be the "greenest government ever." What a load of bullshit.

Following the election in may, Cameron appointed Amber Rudd to the position of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. This is somebody who can 'understand' the conspiracy that the voices calling for action on climate change are doing so as part of an 'anti-growth, anti capitalist' plot. It was also revealed by Private Eye that her brother Roland's Lobbying company represents a construction firm with a potential £100 million contract for the construction of a Nuclear power plant, the decision on its construction rests with Amber.

So far, not looking like the ideal Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, but what has been done since the Conservative majority in may?

• An end for onshore wind subsidies:

Rudd scrapped the subsidies for wind farms a year earlier than planned claiming it was time for the industry to stand "on it's own two feet." Katja Hall of the Confederation of British Industry slammed this as "a blow to the industry" and "damaging" to Britain's reputation. 

     

• A fast track for Fracking:

Fracking is a controversial issue in the UK. This method of extracting shale gas is heavily pushed by the Conservatives, despite the uncertainties and risks involved. Even if we ignore these, the claim that this Government is committed to reducing our carbon emissions is destroyed by their eagerness to start burning this fossil fuel on a much larger scale.

    Local authorities have faced a lot of opposition to opening up their land to fracking, and now the Conservatives plan to reduce the time they have to consider applications.On top of this, there are plans for fracking applications to be decided by government ministers, rather than the local authorities in the affected areas. 

    Finally, the decision was made for fracking to now be permitted in Sites of Special Scientific Interest, despite a pledge not to. In total, 1000 square miles have been opened up to fracking including much of North Yorkshire, the North west and the East Midlands.

• Scrapped the plan for Carbon neutral homes.

Introduced by Gordon Brown in 2006, the idea was to have all homes producing renewable energy such as Solar on site, whilst tightening up energy efficiency standards. Definitely the wrong direction to be going in whilst real progress is being made in this area.

    This government has also scrapped a scheme to help people insulate their homes to avoid energy being wasted.

So all in all, a bleak outlook for those hoping that our Husky-hugging Prime Minister might take the issue of climate change seriously. Still, at least it's one of those issues that we can afford to put on the back burner for a few years...