Westminster, ever-consumed in the buzz of its own bubble, has settled on a new topic to centre its weekly debate on: the new Netflix show Adolescence. On both left and right, politicians and journalists have sought to find the answer to the questions the show poses, and while, unsurprisingly, the answer is often a mere repackaging of party dogma, the most worrying trend is the nature of the discussion itself. British political coverage now functions as a dialogue between TV dramas and the faux-concern of the tabloid press, with very little input from the young people they make the subject of their coverage. No one seems to have thought to ask the group that has grown up using social media and can now reflect on the consequences – those in their twenties and thirties.
The Prime Minister has coupled his support for playing Adolescence in schools with a pledge to reform planning laws and reform the university funding model – evidence that British politics might escape the vice grip of gerontocracy. This is, unfortunately, yet another example in a long line of patronising experiments on an age cohort which once contained statesmen. This decline in political significance for those in their twenties from leadership to a pitiful election-day turnout statistic will only be resolved by a rethinking of how we view age and experience in politics.
A lesson must first be drawn from the United States, where the disconnect between government and young people has reached a particularly alarming extent, and the consequences have manifested themselves in the rollback of the liberties that most Americans of working age have no memory of fighting for. By the end of his term, Donald Trump will be the oldest president in the country’s history, beating his predecessor, and has, in his short time in office, enacted the biggest rollback in economic and social progress for decades. He has introduced the highest tariff level on goods since the 19th century, causing a stock market crash which will disproportionately affect lower-income workers, who are more likely to be under the age of 30.
The Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, and according to the George H.W. Bush-appointed judge Clarence Thomas, “should reconsider” the rulings that protect the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage. All of these were monumental victories of civil rights advocacy groups that have been reversed at the whims of an entrenched conservative majority, and this is a clear warning to us in the UK. Turnout among 18-29 year olds dropped from over 50% in 2020 to just 42% in 2024, and this has contributed to a politics dominated by the elderly and their interests. This is not only an issue at a national level – issues like redistricting, local funding allocation, and now abortion, are matters for the states, where under-30 turnout is even lower, and it is therefore no surprise that policies continue to benefit wealthier, older voters.
The political climate in the UK has not reached the same level of polarisation and disillusionment, but with both major parties polling in the mid-20s and the populist Reform party up double-digits on their 2024 performance, it may not be far off. While Westminster politics continues to fracture, matters that affect people trying to start their careers and get on the housing ladder remain sidelined in favour of discussions affecting pensioners, who are the wealthiest age cohort in Britain.
This is the result of a potent combination of infantilising attitudes towards those under 30 held by the media, and a lack of agency from young people who refuse to participate. The former can be seen clearly in how forward-thinking economic policies are presented in comparison to wealth transfers to pensioners: the WASPI campaign, which is centred on the claim that its members remained unaware of widely publicised changes to the state pension age for women to bring it in line with that for men for 16 years, and therefore compensation of £36 billion is owed. This naked entitlement is accompanied by the furore which accompanied the means-testing of the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), despite the state pension increasing by a greater figure than the WFP.
These two policies attracted a far greater share of media outrage than the cancellation of HS2 beyond phase 1, for which costs have spiralled as a result of endless regulatory barriers and legal challenges. It is these planning and building regulations that most impact people in their twenties and thirties today: house prices have soared when compared to real wages, and the wealth of the country is now increasingly concentrated in the hands of the elderly. Refusal to build houses and infrastructure, and to tackle energy costs on which the former is dependent, will mean that achieving home ownership and career advancement will become more dependent on inheritance, or “the bank of Mum and Dad” – a sad reflection on a society now trending towards gerontocracy.
A further warning is the attitudes that young people in the UK now hold towards democracy. According to a poll carried out by the University of Glasgow, only 57% of people 16-29 said they preferred democracy to a dictatorship – this is the worrying outcome of disengagement and a lack of political education.
This requires change: the first is a re-evaluation of how issues facing young people are discussed. One of the country’s great Prime Ministers, Pitt the Younger, was just 24 years old upon taking office; the recently elected Baby of the House, Sam Carling – 22 when elected – was described in a Telegraph article as “displaying nerves”, described as having a “lack of life experience”, and exuding a “particular kind of frenetic energy that is most commonly found in A-Level exam halls”. This is infantilising rhetoric for a major broadsheet publication, and reflects a sad imbalance in the priorities that exist in Westminster.
However, if participation does not improve, then there is no reason that outcomes will either. It must be remembered that the right to vote is one that was hard-fought for over more than a hundred years, and should not be seen as an optional activity with little impact over one’s own life. The current rollback of rights in the United States, and the ongoing conflict between the Trump administration and universities, may be replicated in the UK if current political trends continue – an end to patronisation from the media and the agency of young people is the only way in which this might be averted.
