Jilted Generation - BLAD

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THE AUTHORS: ED HOWKER, 29, is associate editor of The Spectator, and previously worked for Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Independent.

SHIV MALIK, 29, was listed among the Evening Standard’s most influential Londoners in 2008.

Between them they have written for the New Statesman, Observer, Private Eye and the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph, and have appeared on Sky News, Front Row, Newsnight and the Jeremy Vine Show as well as Radio 4’s PM and The Moral Maze.

Why can so few young people afford to buy a house?

Why do even top graduates struggle to find jobs?

And when they do, why are those jobs poorly paid and unstable?

www.thejiltedgeneration.com

Jilted Generation How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth Ed Howker & Shiv Malik 2nd September 2010 • 9781848311985 £8.99 B format paperback original

Why does politics – from voting to protesting – seem so pointless?

Why is Britain not just ‘broken’ but also broke?

For interview, serial or other press enquiries please contact: Najma Finlay, Publicity Director, Icon Books 0207 700 9962 / najma.finlay@iconbooks.co.uk Icon Books are part of the Independent Alliance.

Please speak to your Independent Alliance rep or the Faber sales office: 020 7927 3800 / sales@faber.co.uk. Orders to TBS. www.iconbooks.co.uk

Welcome to the

Jilted Generation

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The jilted generation – those born after Thatcher came to power – face hard times. While their parents were handed free education, the jilted will spend decades paying for theirs; while previous generations got jobs for life and bought homes to return to, the jilted generation are being locked out.

But if Britain’s young people are insecure, unstable and poor, their parents are the richest generation ever to have lived and they have flatly failed to share the wealth.

Twenty-something journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik tell the sad, maddening story of how their generation’s future, once alive with possibility, is being strangled by the culture of short-termism; how the baby-boomers – their parents’ generation – seemingly squandered a nation’s communal wealth, turned their backs on society and broke all barriers in a lifelong quest to express themselves.

Instead of creating a new world, their actions really fostered a nation riddled with inequality, elitism and political corruption.

Jilted Generation sets out how the next generation might succeed where this one failed.

Radical, angry and passionate – while meticulously researched and carefully argued – Jilted Generation is a callto-arms that will make sure you never look at your parents (or your children) in the same way again.

ON HOUSING: ‘The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that if house prices had grown in line with the stock market over the last two decades (5 per cent per year) then average house prices would now be 50 per cent cheaper. This, they believe, should be the fair cost of housing. Anything higher than that leads to a skewed economy because those who already own houses stop investing in useful things like companies and business and start using their house as an ATM. So who pays the cost? The answer is simple: those entering the market for the first time.

It’s our generation who must pay the older generation to live the good life, so that we can have a place to live. So how much is this overpayment worth? One trillion, three hundred billion pounds – that’s nearly Britain’s total Gross Domestic Product in 2009.’

ON POLITICS: ‘Politicians from all parties, eager to get babyboomer votes, have become prone to paying them special attention, giving them special favours. And, of course, these favours might not merely include the odd free TV licence or bus pass, but also the decision to encourage housing speculation of the kind that has locked young people out of the housing market, or to encourage postretirement working while millions of unemployed young people are ignored.

Suddenly, it is possible to perceive a skewing of policy away from the interests of the jilted generation and towards those of their more numerous and electorally engaged parents – not through any conscious effort by voters, but simply because of their numbers.’

ON JOBS: ‘We’re in the closing moments of the grand experiment played out on us by predecessors who started their work before we were even born, who abolished the “stop-go economy” and gave us stop-go lives, who gave us a “knowledge economy” and then charged us for the knowledge, who removed all stability and wonder why we stumble. And the conclusion of this grand experiment is already clear. We have been infantilised, marginalised, ultimately stigmatised ...’

• Powerful, timely polemic that taps straight into the post-election mood, especially among younger people • From two young and wellconnected journalists – wideranging media coverage guaranteed • Online campaign including extensive web advertising, a free audio version on Spotify, audio and video podcasts, and direct author interaction through Facebook and Twitter.

• Innovative offline campaign including public stickering, flyers in club handouts, giveaways and events • B format paperback original – cheap and pickupable!

Jilted_Generation_Blad_A4.QXD:Layout 1 28/06/2010 15:06 Page 3

The jilted generation – those born after Thatcher came to power – face hard times. While their parents were handed free education, the jilted will spend decades paying for theirs; while previous generations got jobs for life and bought homes to return to, the jilted generation are being locked out.

But if Britain’s young people are insecure, unstable and poor, their parents are the richest generation ever to have lived and they have flatly failed to share the wealth.

Twenty-something journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik tell the sad, maddening story of how their generation’s future, once alive with possibility, is being strangled by the culture of short-termism; how the baby-boomers – their parents’ generation – seemingly squandered a nation’s communal wealth, turned their backs on society and broke all barriers in a lifelong quest to express themselves.

Instead of creating a new world, their actions really fostered a nation riddled with inequality, elitism and political corruption.

Jilted Generation sets out how the next generation might succeed where this one failed.

Radical, angry and passionate – while meticulously researched and carefully argued – Jilted Generation is a callto-arms that will make sure you never look at your parents (or your children) in the same way again.

ON HOUSING: ‘The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that if house prices had grown in line with the stock market over the last two decades (5 per cent per year) then average house prices would now be 50 per cent cheaper. This, they believe, should be the fair cost of housing. Anything higher than that leads to a skewed economy because those who already own houses stop investing in useful things like companies and business and start using their house as an ATM. So who pays the cost? The answer is simple: those entering the market for the first time.

It’s our generation who must pay the older generation to live the good life, so that we can have a place to live. So how much is this overpayment worth? One trillion, three hundred billion pounds – that’s nearly Britain’s total Gross Domestic Product in 2009.’

ON POLITICS: ‘Politicians from all parties, eager to get babyboomer votes, have become prone to paying them special attention, giving them special favours. And, of course, these favours might not merely include the odd free TV licence or bus pass, but also the decision to encourage housing speculation of the kind that has locked young people out of the housing market, or to encourage postretirement working while millions of unemployed young people are ignored.

Suddenly, it is possible to perceive a skewing of policy away from the interests of the jilted generation and towards those of their more numerous and electorally engaged parents – not through any conscious effort by voters, but simply because of their numbers.’

ON JOBS: ‘We’re in the closing moments of the grand experiment played out on us by predecessors who started their work before we were even born, who abolished the “stop-go economy” and gave us stop-go lives, who gave us a “knowledge economy” and then charged us for the knowledge, who removed all stability and wonder why we stumble. And the conclusion of this grand experiment is already clear. We have been infantilised, marginalised, ultimately stigmatised ...’

• Powerful, timely polemic that taps straight into the post-election mood, especially among younger people • From two young and wellconnected journalists – wideranging media coverage guaranteed • Online campaign including extensive web advertising, a free audio version on Spotify, audio and video podcasts, and direct author interaction through Facebook and Twitter.

• Innovative offline campaign including public stickering, flyers in club handouts, giveaways and events • B format paperback original – cheap and pickupable!

Jilted_Generation_Blad_A4.QXD:Layout 1 28/06/2010 15:06 Page 1

THE AUTHORS: ED HOWKER, 29, is associate editor of The Spectator, and previously worked for Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Independent.

SHIV MALIK, 29, was listed among the Evening Standard’s most influential Londoners in 2008.

Between them they have written for the New Statesman, Observer, Private Eye and the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph, and have appeared on Sky News, Front Row, Newsnight and the Jeremy Vine Show as well as Radio 4’s PM and The Moral Maze.

Why can so few young people afford to buy a house?

Why do even top graduates struggle to find jobs?

And when they do, why are those jobs poorly paid and unstable?

www.thejiltedgeneration.com

Jilted Generation How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth Ed Howker & Shiv Malik 2nd September 2010 • 9781848311985 £8.99 B format paperback original

Why does politics – from voting to protesting – seem so pointless?

Why is Britain not just ‘broken’ but also broke?

For interview, serial or other press enquiries please contact: Najma Finlay, Publicity Director, Icon Books 0207 700 9962 / najma.finlay@iconbooks.co.uk Icon Books are part of the Independent Alliance.

Please speak to your Independent Alliance rep or the Faber sales office: 020 7927 3800 / sales@faber.co.uk. Orders to TBS. www.iconbooks.co.uk

Welcome to the

Jilted Generation