The famous “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch is a work of genius. As each of them try to outdo the other with absurd accounts of childhood hardship it finishes off with one claiming he drunk sulphuric acid, worked 29 hours a day down mill and returned home only for his parents to kill him.

As a parody on nostalgia it’s brilliant because, as with all the best comedy, there’s an underlying truth to it – older generations tend to believe life was tougher for them than for those who come after.

For many Baby Boomers, in particular, the assumption of an upward trajectory of progress and wealth is so ingrained that it can be difficult to accept anything else. The sad reality, however, is this notion no longer holds true. In the decades to come, the youngsters of today will see the pensioners of the 2020s as the golden generation who never had it so good.

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I realise many older readers will not take kindly to these words. You’ve worked hard to earn life’s little luxuries and deserve them; rightly so. To be told you have enjoyed a disproportionately larger share of the nation’s spoils is not easy to accept. But, while you may not have grown up with mobile phones or multiple TV channels, but you did have the advantage of three great pillars of post-war society: a strong welfare state; job security; and affordable housing.

As we reported last week, under-25s have borne the brunt of the pandemic job losses. The impact of this on young people who should be setting out on life’s big adventure – leaving home and starting their own families – can’t be underestimated. Many will have no alternative but to stay with their parents and, if they’re lucky, find work in the gig economy, where collective bargaining and pension rights are anathema.

What chance do our young people have in a rigged system where wealth is concentrated in a tiny minority and governments are too timid to challenge big business on tax and workers’ rights?

To be unemployed in the 1970s involved a weekly trip to sign on, few questions asked. Today, to receive state aid involves the indignity of proving your level of desperation and an interrogation over your intentions to find work.

Meanwhile, trying merely to get on the property ladder is akin to conquering Everest. When I bought my first flat in 2002 I could just about afford it on my single wage. Fast forward 20 years, to buy the same property on the same real-terms salary would be the stuff of dreams. Indeed, as we reported, first-time buyers in Glasgow have to save for seven and a half years, on average, to be able to afford a deposit. Again the “hotel of mum and dad” is the only answer.

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Even the prospect on inheritance is ever dwindling as the state siphons off the assets of those living longer. And to top it all off, there’s the pension time bomb silently ticking away in the background as an ageing society looks to a shrinking, insecure workforce to pay for their care.

Boomers aren’t to blame, they’re just fortunate to have been born at the right time. Millennials are often branded, unfairly, as “snowflakes” but, make no mistake, there’s an economic blizzard coming and there will be nowhere to hide.

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