By Eddie Barnes
There isn’t a vacancy yet but the phoney war to become the UK’s next Prime Minister is well underway. And the John Smith Centre’s UK Youth Poll 2026, published last month, has entered the debate.
Yesterday, the former Health Secretary Wes Streeting used his resignation speech in the House of Commons and interviews with the BBC to highlight two of the poll’s findings to frame his pitch to the country.
Our poll found a sharp drop in the number of 16–29-year-olds across the UK who believe their lives will be better than their parents, from 63% last year to just 36% this year. We also found that 50% of young people say there are no circumstances under which they would fight for the country.
Mr Streeting seized on both. Speaking to presenter Nick Robinson he said he feared there was a “pessimism” in the air; “a fear that things won’t get better.”
Turning to the Youth Poll, he noted:
“I also think that the thing that has fundamentally broken in this country is a social contract that says the next generation will do better than the last. And throughout our modern history that has been true until now. If this country and our politics can’t leave Britain better for the next generation then what the hell are we doing?”
Mr Streeting then added later in the interview:
“Going back to that poll, half of young people said they wouldn’t fight for their country. I think they would. But that’s not the question. The question isn’t for me, would young people fight for their country? The question is when will this country fight for them?”
He cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a moment when “we asked children to make sacrifices for adults”, constraining their education, their childhoods and their development to protect older generations. He concluded by saying the government must find ways to offer some hope, or we risk decline becoming “inevitable” and democratic values being questioned.
It’s a warning that’s supported by the evidence. The poll and the interviews we conducted for all showed that young people increasingly perceive Britain’s political economy as intrinsically unfair. Many think the social contract is already broken. They have played by the rules: falling into debt to get a degree. And then they’re spat out into the labour market to discover the job they were promised has just taken by AI.
If you want an insight into the mood of Gen Z just now, just watch this clip of Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt speaking to students at the University of Arizona last week. Mr Schmidt’s evident surprise as he is boo-ed for extolling the virtues of AI only serves to illustrates our growing generational gap. Our poll found that AI was seen by young people primarily as a job killer. Only this week, Standard Chartered announced it was cutting 7,800 back office roles which will now be performed by artificial intelligence. No wonder the billionaire middle-aged founder of Google found his blithe sales pitch for this new world thrown back in his face.
The purpose of the John Smith Centre’s UK Youth Poll is to amplify the concerns and priorities of Britain’s young people and it’s good to see our finding being picked up by Mr Streeting. He has started the debate over how to offer a better future for the UK’s young people: now over to Andy Burnham, Sir Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and whoever else enters the contest to add their ideas too.
Listen to a clip from Mr Streeting’s interview for Political Thinking with Nick Robinson below:
