I belong to a lucky generation: too young to have experienced the Depression, or the second world war, or postwar austerity. The first political figure I recognised was Harold Macmillan, who told voters they had never had it so good.
His statement was true, if foolish, and my contemporaries and I benefited. The government paid us to go to university. We took for granted we would choose between attractive job offers. I was quickly appointed to a post from which it was practically impossible to be fired and which offered a pension scheme with generous, index-linked benefits. I bought a flat with a mortgage whose value was wiped out by inflation. By the time I was paying a higher rate of income tax, the level had been cut from 83 per cent to 40 per cent. My life expectancy is several years longer than my father’s, and I have already considerably exceeded the age at which his father died.
If young people today want to attend university, they will have to pay for tuition and borrow to meet living expenses. When they graduate, they face a much more competitive job market. Few careers will offer the job security once characteristic of middle-class employment. Defined benefit schemes have almost disappeared from the private sector, and public sector pensions are to be substantially less generous. Tax rates must rise, partly to pay for the care and medical treatment I will demand as senility advances. The only financial consolation for the next generation is the windfall when we leave them our houses.