Today marks the start of meteorological summer. Traditionalists wait until the summer solstice to declare that the real summer is upon us. There are only another three weeks to wait and to enjoy the lengthening of the daylight. However, as we’ve noticed before, the ‘silly season’ has already begun and has spread from just the newsrooms to the whole of Westminster. You’ve only got to look at the front pages (link) to see what I mean.

For example, what or who on earth in Tory High Command thought that it was a brilliant idea to have Mr Zahawi, of all Tories, as ‘spokesperson’ for their campaign to scrap Inheritance Tax? The DT has him on their front page (paywalled link), announcing this demand by 50 Tory MPs. I’m sure this’ll play well in the shires come the GE!

We read in that report that “the inheritance tax threshold has remained at £325,000 since 2010 and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has now frozen it until 2028.” (paywalled link). The arguments coming from ‘prominent’ Tories are the same which people have been making since 2010, when the then Chancellor Mr Osborn, froze the tax threshold which has remained there ever since. 

Cynical old me thinks this is nought but a clever attempt by the Tories to grab an advantage for the coming election because it worked in 2010 when they beat the Brown Labour government. Cynical old me wonders why the Tory governments since 2010 have done nothing to tackle this issue, Cynical old me also thinks that Zahawi and the rest have a cheek bringing this up when their Chancellor has just frozen that tax threshold until 2028. 

I’m sure a Starmer government will not touch that issue. After all, the £7bn which this tax haul brings in are needed – for the NHS, for example. Moreover, this is a wonderful opportunity to rail against the sleazy, ‘rich’ Tories who want to hand their ‘privilege’ of owning ‘riches’ to their kids. 

The focus of this debate isn’t yet on age, i.e. on those despised ‘boomers’, but I’m sure it’ll come! A few days ago there was a sly opinion piece in the DT which on the face of it looks to be about WFH: : “It’s boomers who are to blame for Gen Z shirking from home – Senior management must return to the office to help younger generations” (paywalled link), starting with lambasting the ‘brick-and-pension rich’ boomers for preferring to WFH, to then declare:

“The social contract relies on the passing on of knowledge, training, expertise, behaviours, workplace culture and ethics to younger and future workers. The intergenerational transmission of workplace knowledge is at risk if older, senior workplace leaders ignore their responsibilities of passing these skills on to younger colleagues today. […] Don’t older colleagues owe it to their younger colleagues to teach them the ways of organisational culture – both good and bad?” (paywalled link)

The majority of comment posters were scathing, pointing out that, actually, most of  yon ‘boomers’ were already retired. Here’s a nice little table, listing those ‘generational’ names according to their age cohorts. Apparently there’s no name yet for those born in the last ten years. Shall we call them ‘generation smartphone’?

While some comment posters pointed out that the Gen Z cohort is disinclined, shall we say, to listen to their elders, this is something which must please Labour because they seem to think that giving 16-year-old Gen Z people the vote is a very good thing since yon generation is taking ‘advice’ from their smartphones and thinks votes are like giving ‘likes’, with no consequences.

However, I detect a subliminal groundswell against this Labour proposal: more reports are now labelling the under-18 as ‘children’. For example, there’s a report in The Times about a tragedy at Bournemouth Beach (my emphasis):

“A man in his forties has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after two children died after an incident at Bournemouth beach yesterday. The girl aged 12 and a boy, 17, sustained “critical injuries”, according to Dorset police, and died later in hospital.” (link, paywalled)

Disregarding the tragedy, note well that a 17-year old is now still ‘a boy’, not ‘a youth’. Perhaps it needs tragedies like this one, calling these youngsters ‘boys and girls’, to lead to a re-think of this ludicrous vote-grabbing strategy. Surely, if ‘boomers’ and other pre-Gen Z generations are meant to teach the Gen Z children, they cannot be expected to grasp the consequences of their voting behaviour by themselves. 

Perhaps the Tories ought to hone their arguments for scrapping the Inheritance Tax by addressing Gen Z, telling them that the Treasury, the State, or indeed Labour plan to rob them of the fruits of their parents’ or grandparents’ work. Isn’t inheriting those ‘riches’ their due because yon older generations have ‘robbed’ them of all that makes for an easy life?

That’s all I have for today. Summer has arrived, with grey skies and low temperatures, and silly ‘news’: how very traditionally British! Have a good day.



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