THE young are revolting. Overlooked, under-served, too often just plain abandoned by our country’s political culture, they have had enough. Now, when they are given the chance to make a democratic point, they seize it: 62.2 per cent of 25-29 year olds voted Yes in the independence referendum; around 75 per cent of 18-24-year-olds voted against Brexit; Jeremy Corbyn’s surprise success in the General Election was in no small part down to a turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds of 66.4 per cent, compared to 43 per cent in 2015.

This political renewal among under-30s is, in a sense, glorious. They march more often than they once did. They go to the polling station in higher numbers than before. They are more vocal about their interests through social media.

But the roots of the renewal are less glorious. If the young have been radicalised, who can blame them? When they do want change – say, independence, or a Labour government led by an old Trot who claims to be on their side – they don’t get it. When they don’t want change, such as the gamble with their future that is leaving the EU, it is forced upon them by older generations – by the same people who have tooled the state and the society it serves to suit their own ends.

In the words of the former New Zealand prime minister Norman Kirk, people don’t want all that much beyond “someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for”. On three out of four of these measures, the deal offered to today’s young adults isn’t much cop.

Home ownership has almost halved across the UK for 25 to 34-year-olds since the turn of the century. Fewer than 10 per cent of 16-24-year-olds are homeowners, compared to 23 per cent in 2001. Big talk on homebuilding has not been matched by transformative action. The financial crash of 2008 saw billions handed to the banks by way of a bail-out, and the industry responsible for causing the crisis has sailed blithely on as it has become ever harder for ordinary people to acquire a mortgage.

In England and Wales, the young have had university tuition fees imposed on them by those who never had to pay such fees themselves, ensuring they emerge from higher education with considerable debt. They arrive into a jobs market that is in a state of flux – a decade of austerity and low private-sector investment means that work can be scarce or insecure.

The fast pace of technological change ensures that few can look forward to a long and stable career in the same job or even the same industry. The promised robotisation of the workplace will only add to this insecurity. Even the idea of a decent pension is off the table for many – a system that once promised a reasonable post-work income has been hollowed out. They will have to work until they drop.

For all these reasons and more, it is easy to see why the young lack Mr Kirk’s “something to hope for”. I would argue the key cause of this gloominess isn’t so much inequality, which will always be with us outside the miserable environs of a communist state, as it is abject unfairness. The UK’s wealth gap has been widening over the past decade. It’s estimated that one per cent of adults, some 488,000 people, own 14 per cent of the nation’s assets, worth about £11 trillion. Fifteen per cent, or 7.3 million people, either own no assets at all, or are in debt.

Older people have been mollycoddled by the state, largely due to the fact that they traditionally vote in such large numbers. The Tories went into the General Election promising to scrap the triple lock on pensions – which sees them rise by the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent a year, whichever is the highest – and instead spend the money on younger workers, but the plan has been abandoned in the turmoil that has followed polling day. The same fate has befallen a pledge to means test the winter fuel allowance.

The early days of the Theresa May regime had suggested the Conservatives were finally waking up to society’s growing tensions. The new Prime Minister stood outside Downing Street and promised to fight against the “burning injustice” that “if you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others. If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re educated privately. If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man. If you’re young, you’ll find it harder than ever before to own your own home.” As we look at her calcified administration today, those words seem to belong to a very different era.

Not everything is as straightforward as it seems, of course. In England and Wales, the numbers of students from poor backgrounds has climbed since the introduction of tuition fees, while in fee-free Scotland there has been a decline. The changes to the jobs market are largely due to a technological revolution that no one can stop and that brings many benefits in its wake. Scottish independence would have ushered in a period of austerity that would have made the UK’s look like a cakewalk. Mr Corbyn’s manifesto was ludicrously unaffordable for an economy still finding its feet after the crash.

Bringing an end to austerity cannot be cheaply done, either. A new report by the Resolution Foundation finds that quickening the pace of public service spending increases from 2020-21 in line with the growth of the economy could cost £12.3 billion. Setting an earlier deadline for the rise to kick in, say, 2018-19, would cost £23.5bn. Matching public pay increases to those in the private sector from 2018-19 would cost £9.7bn. Reversing cuts to tax credits and Universal Credit support for children from 2018-19 would be £2.7bn. Scrapping the benefit freeze planned up to 2020 would mean finding another £3.6bn.

There is no easy way out of the situation we’ve managed to get ourselves into. But this bitter divide between young and old is a dangerous and unsustainable fault-line. A rebalancing is long overdue. The question is, how can it be done?