L ast week I was talking to a group of twenty-something women lawyers who had just started work in the City of London. One told me she was fed up with being asked how old she was by middle-aged colleagues and clients. The others agreed: they got asked their age all the time and they hated it. They saw it as a way of undermining their authority and putting them in their place.

When I got into the office the next day I did a survey of the youngest people I could find and asked if the same thing happened to them. Almost all said yes – not just the women, but the men, too.

How grim, I thought. Here is another indignity borne by the crunch generation – they are locked out of the housing market, saddled with student debt, struggling to find a decent job, and when they finally land one, they get punished for being young.