So the Lib Dems have released their own Uptown Funk video in Cassette Boy style and are getting totally slammed for it. You’ll have to watch it through your fingers though because a) it’s really poorly cut together and b) they think doing an Uptown Funk video is a current, up-to-date thing that the youth are interested in. When, actually, Obama did it about twenty million years ago (approx).
Thing is, they shouldn’t need to be doing this sort of utter cack in order to win the ‘young vote’, because their entire manifesto is geared towards helping under-25s. They’ve got some pretty good policies – like Rent To Own, giving young people the chance to buy a place without having to put down a massive deposit – and they’re the only party who have fully committed to the next generation, compared with the Tories who just focus on old people because they know it’ll get them votes (that’s quite a broad summation of Tory party policy, but you get the idea).
But it’s not translating into popularity for Clegg and the gang. Recent YouGov polls showing that the Lib Dem youth vote share is 5%, under half that of UKIP’s 13%. Why? Because people haven’t forgotten that excruciating moment when Clegg announced a tuition fee hike immediately after getting into power, despite promising that, if he got into power, he would never hike tuition fees.
If you read the small print (which very few bothered to do, because they were too busy chaining themselves to things and burning Nick Clegg effigies, it turned out that the repayment scheme is actually a lot better now, and while ‘TUITION FEES ARE NOW £9,000 A YEAR’ was a nice, shocking headline, no student has to deal with that actual cost.
It gets written off after 30 years by the government so, if anything, Clegg sort of helped students – but the damage had already been done. Demonstrably, considering the fact that it seems like young people are just not buying the Lib Dem manifesto, and probably expect him to do the opposite of everything he says. Which in this case would be... I don’t know. Shooting young people?!
Chasing the youth vote is a risky move for the Lib Dems anyway, because we famously don’t vote in our droves (Only 38% of UK under-25s have voted in any election in the last three years, according to research), but if they hadn’t fucked it up quite so royally, we would be a tad more interested in their proposed policies than we are.
Rent To Own is a great idea and, even if it falls on its arse (in a bizarre parallel world where the Lib Dems win the election), at least they’re trying to come up with real solutions to the very real problems young renters with no hope of owning a home are currently facing. They’re the only party, for example, who want to increase the rate of housebuilding to create enough affordable housing; nobody knows how they plan to do it, sure, but if they pulled it off, it’d make a huge difference.
But nobody’s listening, so they’ve been reduced to releasing horrifyingly desperate yoof videos. And instead of discussing their policies, we’re too busy trying to wash out our eyes.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.