Now is the time for the Tories to be wooing under-35s – so why aren’t they doing it?

“‘Education not indoctrination’: Nadhim Zahawi tells schools to root out activist teachers ‘brainwashing’ children”, screamed MailOnline on Sunday. “‘BRAINWASHING’: Schools must stop teaching activist propaganda, warns education secretary” was in The Sun the day before.

This particular round concerned reports of schools telling kids to write letters to their local Labour MP criticising Boris Johnson, but stories like these have come and gone for many years.

When it isn’t commie teachers telling their pupils to hate the Conservatives at an impressionable age, it’s commie university lecturers forcing their students to go “woke” before they enter the job market.

There are, as far as these parts of Fleet Street are concerned, swathes of bright-eyed potential right-wingers born every day in this fine country. Tragically, they are then brought to the dark side by sinister left-wing cabals, and that is why young people are now considerably more likely to vote Labour. Or something along those lines.

Instead, what – I’m sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought. I was taking a brief break from writing this and went on Twitter – where else? – and was confronted with the news that Transport for London’s fares will rise by just under 5 per cent on 1 March. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go bang my head against the nearest wall for a moment.

Right. What I meant to say is this: every week there is a new story or speech or tweet by a Conservative MP accusing the nation’s educators of turning their students against the government. This is why, we are led to believe, the Conservative Party is currently unpopular with most people under 35. I would like to offer another explanation, in the shape of my life in 2022.

Last week, my estate agent told me that I had to come into his office to sign a new contract for my cheap, small, basement one-bedroom flat in zone 2. I do not know why. Since our call, I have been tense and stressed, praying to all gods and none that the new contract does not include a rent increase.

I can barely afford this flat as it is and an extra £150 a month would ruin me financially. I have looked at Zoopla, RightMove and the rest and, if I were to be told to move, I would have to go a lot further away from zone 1, as rent prices have gone up so much since I last moved.

Elsewhere, my monthly budget is shrinking faster than ice cream in the sun, since my energy bills are about to turn baths and heating into a luxury. Of course, inflation means that my weekly food shop will also get noticeably dearer. And now those darned Tube and bus journeys are about to get more expensive as well.

Were my life a cartoon, I would currently be looking in horror as greased pound coins slip out of my hands, one by one, no matter how hard I try to hold onto them.

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It is a problem for me, obviously, but it is also a problem for the government. I am a reasonably affluent, white collar worker in my thirties; I am the sort of person the Conservative Party should be showing a bit of ankle to at the moment.

Instead, it is too busy desperately trying to keep the attention of pensioners and homeowners, and my people have been left hanging out to dry. There is nothing for us; only falling standards of living and an increasing feeling of utter powerlessness.

It also feels worth saying that I have it comparatively easy; I earn a decent wage and my career wasn’t especially harmed by the pandemic. What on earth must it feel like to be entering your twenties right about now?

This is a question government ministers should be asking themselves, but it is quite clear that they are not. Instead, they can keep merrily complaining about Marxist schools and universities, happy and cosy in their safe spaces. And I thought we were the snowflakes.