In short, the problems that have arisen in Greece and other European countries are quite simple – people have been paying too little tax and receiving too many benefits and they have done this by borrowing money. They have now borrowed too much, and basically what they need to do, at a time when there is a recession, is to increase their taxes and actually reduce government benefits and salaries. As you can imagine, that will not make any political party popular and the easiest way for a party to try and stay in power is to try and borrow the money and burden a future generation with the debts.

Against that background, and I am sure this will take a few years, it cannot be too long before a younger party comes up which basically appeals for say the 20 to 35 year old vote, which is substantial, by saying that their policy is to reduce benefits for the elderly, increase taxes on the wealthy (which do not generally include that many young people) and similar policies, on an immediate basis, to stop them being burdened with the problems later. As I say, I don’t think that is going to happen quite soon, but the reality of the matter is that it is actually what is in the interest of a younger generation and it is certainly not in their interest to be burdened with higher taxes later, because an older generation now has not properly paid their way.