Labour leader Ed Miliband warns of a ‘jilted generation’
Taking a phrase invented by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik for their book, Labour leader Ed Miliband is today arguing that the UK risks creating a ‘jilted generation’ of younger people whose prospects of a stable, worry-free future are increasingly slim.
As the BBC reports, Miliband will argue that the “Jam generation” of politicians – like Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne who grew up listening to the band The Jam in the 1980s and now dominate government – is in danger of creating the “jilted generation”.
Read the BBC’s story about the speech here and the Guardian’s here.
Forthcoming Jilted Generation events
Here are details of various forthcoming events at which Ed and Shiv – or at least one of them – will be speaking:
20 January, Queen Mary university, east London 8 – 10pm 25 January, Swindon Library, 7pm - more details here. 1 February, Birmingham Library, 4pm - more details here. 4 March, Bath Literary Festival – more details to follow 10 April, Oxford Literary Festival (Ed Howker – panel event) – more details to follow
We look forward to seeing you at one or more of them!
Ed and Shiv LIVE in Birmingham in February
JILTED GENERATION: how Britain has bankrupted its youth with Ed Howker and Shiv Malik
Tuesday 1st February 2011 6.00pm – 8.30pm Birmingham Library Theatre, Central Library, Birmingham
Are you in debt? Are you unemployed? Do you rent your house knowing you could never afford to get on the property ladder? Or worst still, are you living with your parents unable to afford renting? Do you worry that you might never afford to get married or start a family?
If you have answered yes to two or more of the questions above, welcome to the jilted generation.
JILTED GENERATION lifts the lid on the legacy left to Britain’s younger generation and sets out, for the very first time, how the next generation can succeed where this one has failed.
Drawing on their own startling new research, twenty-something journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik argue that, in stark contrast to their parents’ generation, millions of young Britons today face the most uncertain future since the early 1930s. Radical, angry and passionate, JILTED GENERATION takes a closer look at who’s to blame for locking out Britain’s youth – and leaving our country not just broken but broke.
The jilted generation refers to those born after Thatcher came to powerREAD MORE
“The jilted-generation argument is one that we agree with,” says Susan Nash, vice-president of the National Union of Students”
The Irish Times reports on the UK’s Squeezed Generation here.
The Blame Game
Shiv Malik writes on the Index on Censorship website about his experience at the student protests last week, which saw him on the receiving end of the long baton of the law.
‘The run-up to the election saw a string of books on intergenerational unfairness…
… the best was Jilted Generation by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik. They did not confine themselves to education but looked at how children were having their rites of passage to adulthood postponed, and how vast numbers were living with their parents into their 20s. They could not afford exorbitant housing costs, or build a career because they worked in exploitative internships or insecure temporary jobs, if they worked at all.’
Nick Cohen in the Observer yesterday – read his full piece here.
‘We are now an angry and jilted generation…’
News of a protest here outside the Lib Dem conference this coming Saturday from Compass Youth.
What the boomers are leaving their children
Canadian website Macleans reports on how the ‘screwed generation’ are starting to push back – including insights from Ed Howker. Read the full piece here.
Ed and Shiv interviewed for Oxford Student Radio
Listen to the whole interview, broadcast last week, here:
Jilted Generation – Ed Howker and Shiv Malik interview by Icon Books
