That’s not a trump card unfortunately, he’s made a very valid point.
The young of today will not get the same rewards for the same amount of work. It won’t be possible to retire with enormous equity from a house-buying journey spanning say 40 years. There will be no such thing as a final salary pension scheme, they won’t be taking big fat tax-free lump sums at 55 and travelling the world or even thinking about retiring on a state pension at 60 and 65.
In fact, never mind the same rewards for the same amount of work, they won’t even get them for harder work. They’ll never see overtime at time and a half, double-time on Saturdays or treble on Sundays and Bank Holidays. They won’t know what a 37 and a half hour week is, and all the aforementioned retirement, huge equity and pension-pot stuff a pure fantasy. They’d be absolutely overjoyed in the knowledge there was security from plentiful, quality social housing stock for anyone with fewer resources too.
Thatcherism hurt a lot of people and it would be foolish to underplay the impact of that, but the post-Thatcher decimation of workers terms and conditions that has been a tough pill for those seeing themselves go backwards swallow, is actually the starting point for the young of today, they don’t get any of the advantages the older people once had who spend a lot of time resenting what was lost. I know not all pensioners are doing well but millions who have done nothing special other than go to work and try and get by, EXACTLY the same as young people today are doing, are relative speaking, fucking minted.
Every generation with have challenges on its journey but this is the first generation with outcomes likely to be significantly worse that its predecessor and I think we need to acknowledge that.