Young People and Politics

Young People and Politics


The generational narrative has become increasingly important across the political divide. How will we look after a growing population of elderly people? How will young people adapt to having less material wealth than their parents? There are numerous things to focus on under this broad heading: housing, jobs, mental health, the electoral system, education, the NHS and so on and so forth. There are also lots of things happening with the current protest movement. The student occupations are the biggest outpouring of popular youth dissent in two generations and they are linked to school students through the cuts to the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

Books
There are lots of places to start here. You’ve seen Radical Future and read some of Jilted Generation. Other books to look at are:
 * Neil Boorman (2010) It All Their Fault itsalltheirfault.com why we should hate our parents
 * Eric Greenberg and Karl Weber (2008) Generation We www.gen-we.com for a pre-Obama American perspective
 * David Willets (2010) The Pinch Why our economy will completely collapse in the next 30 odd years
 * Francis Beckett (2010) What Have The Baby Boomers Ever Done For Us? Why we’re paying for the spirit of the 1960s

Blogs
Worth following:
 * Laurie Penny’s blog http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny Feminist turned “voice of a generation”. Angry, fun and very smart.
 * UK Youth Parliament http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/ worthwhile organization thinking about young people in a national context
 * Lambeth Youth Council http://www.younglambeth.org.uk/lyc1.aspx innovative local politics
 * UK Youth Climate Coalition http://ukycc.org/ For all things youthful and climate like
 * I Don’t Get Politics Me http://idontgetpolitics.co.uk/ great site answering basic questions