In a staggeringly out of touch report published today, the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) – a notoriously pro-Tory thinktank – proved beyond all reasonable doubt exactly how little conservatives truly understand about the real-world problems faced by young people in Britain today.
The report, ridiculously titled “Scrap the Ibiza Tax and watch Tory votes soar!” has been roundly ridiculed on Social Media.
The full report, dubbed the ‘Millennial Manifesto‘, suggests that in order to win back votes from young people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in June, the Tories should make flights to Ibiza cheaper by scrapping Air Passenger Duty for under 30s, and that they should also legalise drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine.
The document also provides very few truly beneficial solutions to many of the huge problems faced by youngsters today – such as lack of affordable housing, low wages, lack of job security, and a huge rise in the cost of education.
And, as noted by New Statesman columnist Stephen Bush on Twitter:
Parts of the Adam Smith Institute millennial manifesto read as if written by a stunned visitor to Planet Earth.
And reading through certain sections of the report, it’s easy to see why young people feel a huge disconnect between themselves and those in the media and political establishment.
Especially when they write about young people like they are a different species from another planet:
Many young people take recreational drugs. Occasionally some of them smoke a cannabis spliff with friends. Many of them pop an ecstasy tablet to help them enjoy late night dancing at a club. Some of them try amphetamines or snort a line of cocaine. Consumption of any of these drugs is currently against the law. Indeed, two of them, ecstasy and cocaine, are class A drugs with severe penalties attached to their use.
And just take a read of this next embarrassingly clueless snippet:
Young people seem to want to do the things that for decades have been part of young people’s way of life, with the added possibilities and opportunities that modern technology and new developments make possible. Most of them want to socialize with friends, both in person and on social media, to enjoy music and travel, perhaps to work abroad for a spell. Some want to engage with friends in recreational pursuits such as sporting activities. Many enjoy attending concerts, or simply hanging out with their peers over a few drinks.
The report then goes on to slam the Tories for ignoring ‘the concerns of young voters’, as well as both:
neglecting their wellbeing directly and taking positions that are badly out of touch in areas like animal welfare and openness to immigration.
If the Tories are honestly looking to produce policies that will really resonate with young people, rather than listening to provably out of touch organisations like the Adam Smith Institute, why don’t they actually try listening to the views of actual young people?
This is what Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum have done, and this is why Labour’s manifesto received huge praise from younger generations – because the solutions they proposed were workable and they were what young people truly wanted and needed in order to further themselves in life.
The Adam Smith Institute, with their embarrassingly stupid idea of ‘scrapping the Ibiza tax’ are simply trying to guess what young people might be interested in. It is blatantly obvious that they haven’t bothered to gauge the opinion of a single young person when drafting their Millennial Manifesto, and it really shows.
The Conservatives and their cohorts in organisations like ASI are truly scared of young people – they’re scared because they can’t figure out why young people aren’t falling for the pro-Tory propaganda in the newspapers like previous generations have.
The Tories and their associated thinktanks know that they can’t fool young people anymore, and are slowly resigning themselves to the fact that they will have to find solutions to the problems they have created. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, however, is that their so-called solutions seem to be based on their own ridiculous stereotypes of young people.
The only way the Tories will ever win the votes of young people is by stepping out of their comfort zone and into the real world, and by actually listening to ordinary people and producing real solutions to real-world problems.
Unfortunately for the Tories, this generation won’t be fooled.
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