The fiscal system was designed by one generation
and is being paid for by another.
For thirty years, the political centre redesigned pensions, housing, taxation, and public debt in ways that transferred wealth to older cohorts and costs to younger ones. This book names the mechanism, shows the numbers, and makes the case for what has to change.
I grew up in Glasgow in the 1970s and 80s. I received a free university education. I built a thirty-year career in finance across the UK, Singapore, and Australia. I did not earn the system I benefited from — it was inherited, and I was lucky to arrive when I did.
"The question isn't whether the older generation worked hard. Most did. The question is whether the system they designed — and voted to protect — is one that younger people have any realistic chance of inheriting on remotely comparable terms."
The Unlucky Generation is not a polemic about age. It is an argument about fiscal honesty. The data is public — ONS, OBR, WGA, HMRC, the Student Loans Company. What is missing is not the evidence but the political will to consolidate it and say plainly what it shows.
The book argues for a hypothecated fiscal constitution: seven levies replacing National Insurance, each with a transparent rate and a ring-fenced destination. It argues for land value taxation. It proposes Britain Investment Management — a sovereign wealth mandate that consolidates the fragmented LGPS pools and builds the intergenerational asset the Lucky Generation never built.
Nine themed panels drawing on ONS, OBR, WGA 2023-24, HMRC, HM Treasury, the Student Loans Company, and IMF data. Select a theme in the sidebar to explore the evidence behind the book's arguments.
An animated podcast series exploring the arguments of The Unlucky Generation — produced with original animation, each episode taking one chapter's thesis and making it accessible, sharp, and unignorable.
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A data-led examination of how pensions, housing, and public debt were systematically redesigned to benefit older cohorts while assigning the costs to younger generations — and what a genuinely honest fiscal settlement would look like.
With 23 tables, interactive data companion, and full source citations from ONS, OBR, WGA, HMRC, and the Student Loans Company.