So what has Ed Miliband got to offer young people?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/what-ed-miliband-got-to-offer-young-people

Version 0 of 1.

This post marks the beginning of a series that will examine young people’s engagement with the forthcoming UK general election and with politics more widely. We want to explore the issue of young people in politics with a different lens from those of other media outlets – and we’re kicking off with our reactions to Ed Miliband’s conference speech, which Holly watched in Manchester and Rhiannon watched on TV in London.

Young people are increasingly apathetic about politics, and yet increasingly politically active – as demonstrated by the Scottish referendum campaign. The most recent British Social Attitudes survey found that younger voters are unengaged by party politics but more politically engaged than ever in other ways, for example through boycotting products.

As Miliband highlighted in his speech, the sense of alienation from mainstream politics is palpable. Our generation have felt especially betrayed by Nick Clegg’s reversal on the tuition fees pledge. We are hoping to demystify British politics not only for young readers, but also for ourselves – you shouldn’t need specialist knowledge to make sense of it all. Half the time, we’re not quite sure what’s going on, and we have questions, ranging from, “Did chief whips ever actually use whips?” to “Why is Grant Shapps always mysteriously following and then unfollowing people on Twitter?” to “Who is that new identikit white man in a suit? No, seriously, who the hell is that?”

However, perhaps the most important question of all is, “What do real people feel about this?”

In his speech, Ed didn’t half tell us. He’s been doing a lot of talking to real people, apparently, including young people. But what, if anything, can he offer us?

Being a trendy type, Ed set up an Instagram account where he shared a teaser of the first lines of his speech before it went live. “This election is about you,” it said. “You know this country doesn’t work for you.”

That second sentence will particularly resonate with young people. The Labour conference (which was described by one political journalist within earshot as “like Glastonbury but better” – presumably the popstep that was playing as Ed took to the stage went down well) has been chock-a-block with events concerning crises that particularly affect young people, as well as discussions on how to enthuse the 16-24 demographic about politics. At the Young Women’s Trust on Tuesday, there was a long discussion about the problem of so-called Neets – those not in education, employment or training, a staggering number of whom are young people – whose numbers have swelled during the recession. According to Ofsted, the speakers informed us, only 20% of schools surveyed in 2013 offered “adequate” careers advice. Where are school leavers supposed to go from there?

Ed’s promise to put as many young people into apprenticeships by 2025 as there are going to university is aimed at stemming this tide. It’s a bold promise, and it’s a positive one – even if Labour was broadly responsible for the decline of apprenticeships in the first place, after Blair’s policy of getting 50% of young people into university took hold.

Ed twice mentioned a young woman he met who told him that her generation was “falling into a black hole”. This is true in terms of finances and the out-of-control property market as much as it is about political disengagement. Perhaps his promise to lower the voting age to 16 will go some way towards showing young people that Labour wants their voices to be heard. Ed et al are clearly confident that that would translate into more Labour votes (as he pointed out, the spectre of the aforementioned Clegg still looms large).

The promise to raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2020 sounds better than it is: if the minimum wage kept going up as it has in the past few years, it would be hovering close to the £8 mark by then anyway – and with inflation, it will mean basically nothing more than what would happen under the Tories. More concerning is why he hasn’t committed the party to a living wage, which suggests that his commitment to young people doesn’t quite go as far as his commitment to big business. A serious plan for tackling unpaid internships has also been left off the agenda.

Doubling the number of people getting on the property ladder by pledging to build more homes and double the number of first-time buyers is a desperately needed policy, and an expected one. It speaks particularly to those in their mid-to-late 20s (ourselves included) who can barely contemplate an existence that is not a jam-packed, permanently rented one. And protecting the self-employed also speaks to the young, as a growing number have been shoved out of Jobcentres and convinced into registering as such.

Ultimately, we have come away with a sense of hope: perhaps one day we’ll both see ourselves in a house, with the brazen luxuries enjoyed by our parents, like pensions and non-privatised healthcare, if the next election is a Miliband winner. We do wish he’d stop using terms like “savvy young people” and calling everyone “friends”, but his words about treading water are all too familiar to us and thousands of other young people. Something needs to change, before we sink.