Millennials Why Young Voters Are Turning Their Backs On The Tories

I do think it is pretty obvious really." After new research suggested millennials believe the Conservatives deserve to lose the next election, former Tory cabinet minister David Willetts says the answer lies with the economy.

- Heather Stewart

Polling for thinktank Onward, whose director, Sebastian Payne, hopes to become a Conservative MP, found that 62% of 25- to 40-year-olds believe the party deserves to lose the next election.

Unlike their forebears, this generation does not seem to be shifting to the right as they age. Willetts says that is because they have been denied the stake in society that previous cohorts were able to achieve at the same age.

"The process of spreading the property-owning democracy - the old Tory slogan of young people getting started on the housing ladder, getting a place and a decent.

pension, having a stake in society - that progress is slower, more difficult and more precarious than at any point since the war," he says.

Willetts wrote the 2010 book The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future and Why They Should Give it Back.

Since then generational divisions have become even wider.

Recent Resolution Foundation research showed that the longrunning housing boom, aided by quantitative easing and rockbottom interest rates, has meant baby boomers now own more than half of Britain's wealth as opposed to 8% for millennials.

And while just 10% of family units headed by a baby boomer were living in the private rented sector at age 30, for millennials of the same age, it was 40%.