Andy Burnham is sitting on a ticking timebomb – it’s about to blow up in his face_D

There was a time when most generations felt that those who came after them had it a little easier. Sadly, for the past few years, that seems to have flipped.

Now it feels as if we face staggering levels of resentment between the ages – the young ever more feeling as if they are being left behind. Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, now lament that those who came before them never knew how good they had it. Of course, in many senses, this is exaggerated, but in several areas, they may have the right of it.

Today’s startling news that graduates face the worst job market on record will not have come as a shock to those of us who stepped into the job market over the past two decades.

But it will heap further pain on the so-called ‘Generation Z’, or ‘Zoomers’, those born after the aforementioned group. Entry-level jobs, those available for University graduates, have collapsed by 45% from last year, down to just 8,383 in July.

More than 260,000 are set to start University this year. That news was met with adulation from the occupants of Westminster (many sitting pretty on taxpayer-funded jobs, and degrees).

Why MPs view a tsunami of young people getting qualifications that won’t end in them getting good jobs as a victory is beyond me.

Ever since Tony Blair concocted his ruinously foolish idea of getting as many Brits into University as physically possible, the entire system has begun to resemble something of a racket.

Forking out a small fortune for a degree that gives you few practical skills, wracking up debt only to leave campus and realise that companies can’t afford to hire you.

Now we leave and realise the jobs aren’t even there; the ideology marched them into the lecture hall in the first place, and we’ve also seen the Government slap up taxes that forced companies to stop hiring.

Employers across the country are slashing jobs in the wake of Rachel Reeves‘ disastrous National Insurance hike, otherwise known as a ‘jobs tax’.

Now the Big Four accountancy companies send up apocalyptic warnings that the monstrous spawn of Californian tech bros are slowly munching their way through entry-level jobs in the first place.

Is it any wonder that today’s youth feel more disenfranchised than ever before? Without a good job, they consign themselves to a life on the dole.

And in such conditions, with entry-level wages remaining low, those who do work will likely never be able to purchase their own home – a goal already vanishing for more and more young people.

Having a stake in society is a vital part of a thriving democracy. Yet thanks to decades of ruinously foolish education, tax and business policies, all the while refusing to change the expectation on our children, we have set them up to fail.

To say we have been sitting on this issue is an understatement. Now it is up to Andy Burnham, himself an adherent of the nation-wrecking creed of socialism, to defuse this ticking time bomb and get the country back on track.

Don’t hold your breath.