Appointing a new Researcher
Talking about their generation: Britain’s golden youth
By the time we had been interviewing for three solid hours I was like a limp dishrag. I was wrung out with the hopefulness of it all. It was the talent, the energy, the sheer brilliance of these young people, all of them beaming ‘Pick me, pick me’ into my befuddled skull. We were only trying to hire a new researcher, and it was as though we were auditioning the next prime minister. They could write. They could talk. They could do anything. They had Grade 8 piccolo/flute and Grade 8 viola and awards for the top GCSE marks in the entire country.
Their A-level results cascaded down the page like a suicidal scream. They were magazine editors, union presidents, champion mooters, and they had blues for everything from rugby to lacrosse. They had prestigious New York awards for their film-making; they had been semi-finalists in University Challenge 2004-05. They had already published important articles in the Guardian and served internships throughout the FTSE-100. They had fluent French and confident German and unblemished driving licences and they had managed to secure the top firsts in disciplines from English to Engineering to History while playing squash to county standard.
This article appears in this week’s Spectator magazine.
As they prattled happily away, I sank lower in my armchair; and I reflected, not for the first time, on the amazing thing about the younger generation. It is not just that they are gifted. They just seem so balanced, so well-adjusted, so full of emotional tranquillity, when by rights they should be full of the opposite. These are Maggie’s children. They were born in the 1980s, and according to the think-tanks they should be seething with neuroses and resentment. Think of the burdens they face: student debts averaging £13,000; risible pensions; a housing market as forbidding as the north face of the Eiger; the prospect of coughing up till kingdom come for Gordon Brown’s PFI schemes; and the appalling task of paying for us 1960s baby boomers in our senility. According to a fascinating new pamphlet from Policy Exchange, ’2056: What Future for Maggie’s Children?’, they are the most put-upon generation since the war; and yet they somehow radiate — how can I describe it? — a deep inner pleasantness. Does anyone know what I mean?
Even allowing for the exaggerations of the CV-packer, they seem to do good works on a scale unimaginable by my generation. They have manned suicide helplines and been out on cancer pilgrimages and fought against rabies in South Africa. They have been Oxfam festival stewards and worked with underprivileged and vulnerable children aged 11-16 in Streatham and Brixton, and almost every one of them has done something unheard-of in my day: they have gone to the poorer parts of our cities and evangelised about the benefits of a university education. They just seem so much nicer than we were, so much more feng shui.
In a desperate effort to sort them out, I asked them to do a 500-word essay on the Taj Mahal. We had some tidy pieces, but with none of the arsiness you’d expect from my generation, nothing sarky or me-me-me. No one pointed out, for instance, what a depressing comment it was on Hindu civilisation that its leading monument should be a Muslim tomb, and no one mentioned the unpalatable fact that the emblem of India had been designed by an Italian. Was it perhaps that they didn’t want to be needlessly offensive?
Now we must be honest about the scope of this article; when we talk about ‘young people’ I mean here middle-class university graduates, though there are obviously far more of them than there were; and when I talk about my generation I mean the bunch who graduated about 20 years ago, and what a sharp-elbowed, thrusting and basically repellent lot we were. We were always bragging or shafting each other, and in a way we still are, with our pompous memoirs and calculated indiscretions. When Toby Young began an article in Cherwell with the words, ‘I work harder and achieve more than anyone else I know’, we all chortled in approval of this ghastly ethic. But would any 20-year-old be quite so brazen today? On one side of the political divide we had Thatcherites, voluble or silent. When Gordon Gekko said ‘Greed is good’, we did not exactly cheer, but we smirked. When Tebbo said ‘On your bike’, we thought, yah, he had a bloody good point. When Ronald Reagan said the Soviet Union was an ‘Evil Empire’ we thought the language a bit strong but the analysis broadly sound; and though we were a bit sad for the miners, we thought they were cruelly abused and deluded by their leadership.
On the other side of the argument there was a symmetrical sense of engagement. Some of our girlfriends even went to Greenham Common or held hands outside South Africa House, and two decades later I know a prosperous barrister who still goes ‘oink, oink, oink’ and hisses ‘piggies’ whenever she sees the police. When poor Keith Joseph made his doomed attempt to reform university finance in 1984, he was so pelted with eggs that he backed off. What’s happened to today’s student body? Why don’t they pelt Labour ministers with eggs? They introduced top-up fees, for heaven’s sake. Just imagine the reaction if the scenes from today’s Iraq had been beamed into the JCRs of Thatcher’s Britain. How would 1980s students have behaved if Margaret Thatcher had been co-responsible for a war in which anything between 58,000 and 655,000 innocent Iraqis have been killed? It is true that large numbers initially turned out to protest against the war; but those protesters were not noticeably in the first flush of youth, and more people turned out to object to the closure of rural post offices.
Where is the anger? It’s all iPods and jeans around yer hips and chill, man. We had rock stars called Sid Vicious and people who bit the heads off pigeons and electrocuted their girlfriends in the bath. Nowadays we’ve got the beany-hatted James Blunt, pouring his genius treacle into our ears. He’s brilliant, but he’s not exactly a rebel, is he? My generation spawned loads of tub-thumping right-wing journalists, and we are all still at it, fizzing and puttering away. But where are their equivalents today? Where is the new Charles Moore, Noel Malcolm, Simon Heffer, Matthew d’Ancona, Andrew Roberts, Niall Ferguson, et al? That tree has stopped fruiting, which may or may not be deemed a mercy. But it is certainly a change.
The ethic of young people has changed, and in one sense the reason is obvious. The big divide has gone from politics. When I was growing up there were two opposing world views, colliding like mastodons. It was free market capitalism versus state socialism, and the threat from Russian nukes seemed real, and the danger of Labour’s 98 per cent taxes seemed real. A lot of that interest and drama has gone, clearly; and yet I can’t persuade myself that this wholly accounts for the zen-like passivity of the young.
One friend who agrees with my observation says that the boys in particular have become less angular, while the girls are more pushy. ‘It’s all about “What can you do for me?” and storing my number in their mobiles,’ he says, and that prompts the thought that it may be connected with the general feminisation of society, which starts with the overwhelming feminine influence in schools. The number of male teachers in secondary schools fell by 50 per cent between 1981 and 2001 and the ratio of female to male teachers in primary schools is now about seven to one. Could that have anything to do with it? Children are more mollycoddled, airbagged, booster-seated, risk-averse and deprived of male role models than they were, and that is a bad thing. But they also tend to respond to others in a way that is more intuitive and emotionally intelligent. Might that not be a good thing?
When I was at Oxford, there were 36.7 per cent women, whereas they now make up more than half the undergraduates; and women comprise a sensational 59.2 per cent of the national student body. That is a huge social revolution, and one can imagine the consequences for male psychology. The greatest competition of life has become appreciably easier for the modern male undergraduate: no wonder he sometimes has a languid air. Maybe the ubiquity of women accounts not just for the men’s greater tact and sensitivity, but also for all those funny string bracelets they seem to wear.
Or maybe, frankly, there is a much simpler explanation for the kindness and goodness of the twentysomethings. Maybe things aren’t really so bad for Maggie’s children, and maybe the reason for this temperamental difference between the generations is that we had more of a fight on our hands. Never forget that 1964, the year of my birth, was the year British motherhood punched out a record 875,972 babies, a feat of fecundity never equalled before or since, compared with a feeble 636,818 in 1984. There were far more of us thrashing and boiling around in pursuit of far fewer jobs — and no wonder our elbows were that little bit sharper. OK, so we had student grants, and free tuition, but then these guys and girls in their twenties have so much that is wonderful in their lives. They have gizmos that enable them to lead a fantastically rich social life. With a few little taps they can communicate with all their friends in a way that is instant and personal and witty and above all emotionally literate. Wherever they go they are cocooned in a little electronic womb of comfort and support. They just have to send out a few texts, wait, and sure enough, back they come, the little pipette drops of external affirmation, xxx, landing on their parched tongues and helping them get through the day.
They can travel so much more easily and cheaply; the food is so much better. There are coffee bars everywhere. The cars are faster and safer. No wonder they feel able to ‘lead with their values’, as it says on the tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, when the ice cream is so delicious and so relatively cheap and there is so much good TV to watch it with. And even if, in spite of all these advantages, they are plagued by some hang-up or perversion, they can always gratify it quietly on the internet.
Most important of all, they have no trouble getting a job. Of course, it was painful not being able to hire all the candidates for the researcher post. But then we have almost full employment in this country, and they will all go on to do fantastic things in this vibrant, low-inflation economy. And whom do they have to thank for that? Well, whatever the problems of Maggie’s children, and whatever the unpleasant stereotypes they may have seen in Billy Elliot, the truth is that they are very largely the beneficiaries of reforms that were put in place 20 years ago by Margaret Thatcher, and which promoted high technology, entrepreneurship and sound money.
Of course the 1980s were in many ways a nasty experience, but if it hadn’t been so nasty, Maggie’s children wouldn’t have turned out so nice. If these really are Maggie’s children, then she can’t have been such a bad little mother after all.
146 Comments
Apologies for my comments to Rachel! I’m just feeling threatened to have someone who is probably a lot more intelligent than me on the scene, and yet who is probably around my own age, preventing me from using the excuse of youthful naivety…
Rate This:
0 
0
OK. Here we go. From the top…
Idlex -
Back in the 18th century, pretty much nobody saw the slave trade as a ‘pressing present-day’ problem. It oiled the wheels of the global economy.
Campaginers like Wilberforce stood up and condemned it because they saw it as morally wrong and repugnant to enslave other human beings. They were right, as I’m sure you’ll agree, and they had to use the great debating chamber of Parliament to get their point across. Then they had to use the machinery of government to introduce the necessary legislation. Said legislation was no doubt cumbersome and an affront to some people’s freedoms, but with hindsight I’m hoping we can all agree they were right to do so.
Fast forward to today. What I’m saying to you is that it is morally wrong to continue consuming and polluting at the rate we have been, when the people who are most likely to be affected – the people who ARE being affected – are those who have had the least to do with that consumption and pollution.
Meanwhile…
‘in the case of global warming, we are about to be asked to shoulder a whole new raft of taxes’.
No, we’re not. Please pay attention. What we are all talking about yesterday, in the wake of the Stern report – and what environmentalists have been suggesting for decades – is repositioning taxes. Stop taxing income; start taxing pollution and waste.
Of course, an irresponsible government COULD use climate change as an excuse to raise the overall tax burden. But do you honestly think they’d stay in power long if they did? There are far too many people like your good self out there, finely tuned to the merest whisper of a new stealth tax.
Newmania -
And you, sir, make the classic mistake of all conservatives in assuming that someone who believes in government also believes in bureaucracy. The reason we have an NHS is because forward-thinking people campaigned for it, and pushed it through Parliament, enshrining it in law. The reason the NHS is in trouble today is because it’s become hidebound by bureaucracy.
Of course we could have sat back and waited for the natural laws of the market and trickle-down economics to take care of our health problems; and if we had poor people would still be dying for lack of the funds to pay a doctor.
Let’s move on to Africa. I gather you DON’T lose sleep about it. I think that’s a shame, because I happen to believe we’re all in this together. But don’t make the classic mistake of the conservative in assuming that because I was appalled by Apartheid, I’m not equally appalled by Mugabe or any of the other hideously corrupt black African regimes. Of course some of the Aid doesn’t get through – this is an entire continent we’re talking about. A continent with as many political, social, and environmental dimensions as Europe or Asia. A continent that will be first to feel the effects of environmental catastrophe. A continent full of living, breathing human beings who need the same things as you or I: food, water, shelter, living in peace.
How DARE you suggest we shouldn’t be concerned about Africa, because some African regimes are corrupt?
Let’s move on to Toyota Prius…
Nice wisecrack about the corduroy jacket, by the way. Welcome to cheap cliche world. ‘Breaking wind in a hurricane’ is much better, but equally stupid. Go back to the slave trade, if you will: a multinational industry of its time. Wilberforce stood up in Parliament and said it was wrong, and persuaded Britain to take a moral stand. We did not sit around waiting for all the other slave trading countries to catch up: we took the lead.
As for that car, please go back and re-read my original post. I said it was a SMALL step. Not the solution, but better, in its likely impact on the environment, than a Bentley.
At no point did I say anything in support of celebrities jumping on the environmental bandwagon and buying a Prius to prove how green they are. Please pay attention, and don’t use my arguments to reinforce your own prejudices.
You might even find that I agree with you on some points – like the need for tough negotiation with the Chinese, for example.
PaulD -
Don’t be so bloody silly, suggesting I somehow approve of the Angela Smith thing. I’m genuinely insulted that you would think such a thing. You, sir, are making the same classic mistake of the conservative that Newmania makes.
Since you’re all so narrow in your opinions, I’ll spell it out for you, once and for all:
1/ I am NOT an admirer of the current government.
2/ I believe them to have made made terrible mistakes, particularly in the matter of the Iraq War. I went on that march, and I’m proud of it. However, I’m always more inclined to see this sort of thing as a cock-up than a conspiracy.
3/ Even Margaret Thatcher has her human side. She just tended to make more cock-ups in government than most. Worst, she never admitted they were cock-ups. Intransigence is a sign of stupidity, not moral courage.
4/I do believe in government. It’s a sorry system, in need of reform, but it’s all we’ve got.
5/ If you leave everything to the market, it has one effect and one effect only: the rich get richer, and the poor get more numerous.
6/ I’ve been a supporter of whichever political party makes the most intelligent contribution to the environmental debate since the mid-70s, when I first became aware of the problem. It’s been a pressing problem for 35 years.
7/ I believe in the human race. I have no rational basis for this believe, but I think we can get ourselves out of this mess. Stern seems to think so too. Good for him.
Newmania…
List? What list? Is that some kind of weird conservative threat?
PLEASE, everybody. Learn to read.
Rate This:
0 
0
Gamon- Busy earning money you wish to remove at the moment, but I have read your querulous squeaks . I look forward to pulling off your debating legs like an insect when I have a moment.
Rate This:
0 
0
Gamon,
Britain has not abolished slavery, in fact labour have encouraged it, but it is called people trafficing now.
Rate This:
0 
0
Sigh.
What money do I wish to remove? Au contraire, I’d like you to pay less because you live an ecologically friendly lifestyle.
Go figure.
K – people trafficking is illegal. If you think that’s something to do with the government, you’ve got a lot to learn about how parliament works.
(And that is NOT an endorsement of the Labour Party)
Rate This:
0 
0
Ooh. I was number 100.
Rate This:
0 
0
. Gamon , you are all over the place and answering you feels a bit like playing tennis with myself but………..
“Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.”
Woody Allen
Perhaps it will be fun.
On the slave trade, well quite obviously you pick this example because it is so very unusual . Wilberforce was ,an evangelical Christian and Tory gentleman amateur . This was exactly an example of an outsider, not a government. The circumstances are nothing like as simple as you suggest and have very little to do with our problem today. Gamon ..sigh… , this was before the invention of income tax …bliss.. , on the basis of a bought seat (£9000 actually a fortune then) . The envy of old money for new, the comparative ease with which the British were able to use wage slaves are factors and it was partly a move against the growing power of America.
You say it shows governments are good. I say it shows even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and if anything is an argument for reducing governments to 18th century levels so as to allow privileged elite to act freely on the consciences (?). Irrelevant, unusual; and an argument against the modern state if anything
Government can be hi jacked by religious based pressure groups, and the results can also be catastrophic ,as in the case of prohibition.The Wilberforce case has something in common with this.
To be honest I think I gave you a better case with the factory acts .The green issue has religious traits that are highly suspicious .
On your general point that all laws are an affront to someone’s freedoms ,and that nonetheless we need them, I agree, obviously. I `m a Conservative not an anarchist. This is , to me, a statement of the obvious and misses the point . This is the point:
.Can we trust the worldwide collection of chancers freaks and little Hitlers required for greening trade and the gobal economy, to use powers they may acquire responsibly? Can we trust them not to use fictional emergencies to acquire powers and is their motivation chiefly power or the good of mankind ? NO
To some extent it depends which government ,as I have mentioned ,but at the moment we in a phase where the spread of state power is at least as large a problem as the supposed apocalypse that we have been waiting for for about 1000 years .The correct response is “holocaust denial ” until the state makes this type illegal . The correct response is resistance. The wrong response is to leap like a silly lemming into the hands of a ghastly unaccountable world order like the faintly ridiculous gamon.
There is a problem though. Even if you think top down solutions are the answer which I do not.A global trading frame work will soon be required at a minimal level , even wonderful Ruth Lea admits this . The ghastly prospect this holds out is why Libertarians are more than ever needed. Not Gamons
I would accept though that there are examples where the government is right to ignore the temporary wishes of the people. Iraq is a good one . We have a democracy , not a rolling referendum . I think it is harder to justify the government ignoring the settled opinion of the electorate over a very long period , as in the case of the death penalty . Into the shallow lefty trap of pointing at public opinion only when it suits you , you have fallen .
Moving from your safe ground, worn smooth with meditational repetition we get to taxes where , unsurprisingly , you start to babble like a child . The fact that taxes will not be ,”repositioned “, but raised , is precisely the problem. The only thing that will, prevent that is action outside the state
The governing class tend to agree that they should have more power . I `ll admit it is a subtle point but we cannot go on without admitting the notion of the government acting to safeguard individual freedom. This they do only because they are to some extent the expression of right thinking individual’s, ( the Conservative Party), but also the insatiable appetite of the state for power and money ( New Labour) .
Stealth Tax
” finely tuned to the merest whisper of a stealth tax” .. Well yes ; because it is the nature of these slithering beasts to try to avoid detection. Indirect taxes are now about the same level as income tax and this is about the same as the amount of Social Benefit . Every year brings new taxes which in a variety of ways are subsequently abused. The overall tax burden is the Blair era expressed as govt. managed expenditure has moved from 40 5 to 45%. This is a vastly larger move than it appears given the perimeters of 20% (Wilberforce minimum) and 60/65% , free country maximum.. Anyway as this is weakest point you make perhaps its unfair to dally .
(n another occasion I`ll give you a lesson in the taxation system)Shall we have a small wager, gamon, as to whether VAT is to be scrapped on green products, . Not while brown – nose still draw breath. If the stealthy nature of green taxes, were to be offset from progressive taxation it would be a brutally it would be good? It will not happen..
How long would such a government stay in power?. About ten years so far . An important ratio to bear in mind is that between tax payers and electors
NHS ,is a poor example as their universal support for it in this country . You say the government did it , I say everyone else did it . there ceases to be a clear distinction and the govt. role has chiefly been to muck it up.
The answer is to take parts of it out of direct government control.
I agree the market will not act efficiently alone on health ,but the current problem is that it takes to much responsibility ,not the reverse. You are facing the wrong direction. In general if you thought of society and its organisation as a dynamic process and not a static contract you would fall into less error .
Yes,the market is a garden not a wilderness, and the intervention of central control is quite legitimate., weeding out monopoly practice for particularly . The one monopoly we cannot weed out is the state itself, which is why constant vigilance is required. You are not helping Gamon
Africa – Wring your hands as much as you like , I do not . It makes to difference, unless you wish especially to advertise your inner goodness .
Corrupt people are usually very keen to strike moral attitudes where nothing much is required of them . Aid to Africa does not only, not get through, but is actually harmful by preventing the development of the economies and bulwarking existing inefficiency, and political despotism . It is very convenient for the West to do exactly this. We maintain unfair trade , and keep the continent a placid source of primary resources . This is rather a complicated subject but the simple statement that throwing money at it has not worked is a sound one.
Have you been on a march against Mugabe then? Thought not
The Toyaota Prius . You have not understood my point, and following your example I suggest you re read and this time make an effort to comprehend
Ah yes . It is clear that it always right for the state to drag us into unilateral action ; especially on the basis of pseudo religious beliefs.
Iran , for example , who began the politicisation of Islam and the export of terrorism world wide . They didn`t wait for anyone else, but others have certainly caught up since. Soviet Russia similarly. There is a balance, we have to better than anyone else to have the authority to make them catch up. As we already are your energies are focussed, once more, in the wrong direction.
The market and the way it works or doesn’t, I have alluded to above, but the effectiveness of the Western Liberal markets has been to make everyone richer . That is why Poles come here and not visa versa . Perhaps we should keep free markets ? Someone tell Brown nose
I `m sorry to hear you wasted so much of your life and amused at meaningless remark that you ,” believe in the human race”, .So what .
Intransigence is indeed a sign of stupidity, and I trust that after a period of silence and reflection ,you will be able to demonstrate this by agreeing with me.
List – just a little joke gamon , and I `m sorry about the reading . At our school we used the “expressing yourself with play dough ” , method , so what do you expect.
Righty ho , must crack on … and the bloody Boris site is down again AGAIN!!! . What is going on , has it been taken over by the state ?
Rate This:
0 
0
Yesterday I had a lesson in saving the planet from Adrian (for it is he) from the local council.
To set the scene, the council has gone eco and we’ve just taken delivery of three wheelie bins – one for food scraps (waste of time in our case as most of it goes on the compost heap), one for “dry recyclables” and one for non-recyclables. The council has opened a recycling hotline for idiots like me. Conversation follows…
So All the plastic marked 1, 2 or 3 goes for recycling, right?
Right
But as far as I can see most of our plastic waste has a number four or higher. Or it’s too small to read. Or it has no number at all. Where does that go?
To a landfill site.
But this stuff makes up most of our waste. That’s a shame, isn’t it, when we’re trying to recycle everything?
Yes, it does seem a shame
So why can’t it be recycled?
Because the recycling centre won’t accept it. They’ll take things like drinks bottles which are usually 2 or 3. So the rest can’t be recycled.
Oh, I see. Ahem. Another question. I have a 5-litre engine oil can marked recycle code 2. Where does that go?
Number two? In the dry recyclables bin.
But it’s still got some oil residue, probably an eggcup full.
Well if it’s number two it goes in the dry recyclables.
But the oil is full of nasties, like heavy metals, and you say it’ll be turned into drink bottles.
Oh, you may have a point there. Put it in the black bin (non-recyclable).
Thanks. Another question. Your blurb says all foil should go in the black bin. Do you mean aluminium foil?
Yes
But you accept aluminium cans for recycling, why can’t I put foil in with them?
Because the recycling centre doesn’t take foil.
Why not?
Because it only takes cans.
Sorry, that’s not a reason. Can you give me a technical reason why it won’t accept foil.
Oh, hang on. (Lengthy muttering in background). Apparently it’s because the foil is too concentrated
What, the foil is pure but the cans are an alloy?
Yes, that’s it! Alloy.
Seems a pity to bury the pure aluminium, then.
Yes, it is a pity. But that’s how it is.
OK, next question
You have a lot of questions
Yes, I’m an inquisitive sort of person. What do I do with light bulbs?
Oh, they can go in the black bin.
But the blurb says you don’t take light bulbs at all. I was wondering what to do with them. They don’t compost very well.
Well the odd one won’t do any harm.
Great. Thanks. And what about window glass? It says I mustn’t put window glass in the bottle bank. So what am I supposed to do with it?
Well you could put one broken window pane in with the bottle bank if you break it up small. I don’t suppose that would hurt.
Good. Now what about the dreaded microchip? Is there one hidden in the bin?
Most of the bins we’re issuing have a chip. The government insists they come with a chip fitted.
So are they activated?
Not a chance. It’ll cost us a small fortune to install all the necessary equipment in the dustcarts to read the chip and weigh the bin, so we’re not doing it.
Do you think it will come?
Possibly
OK, so in our house we tend to let newspapers and stuff pile up, then have a good clear-out. Say I didn’t use the bin for three weeks then put it over the limit. Would I get a rebate for the three unused weeks?
Ha! I very much doubt it!
______
Forget Toyotas, Stern reports and biofuel. There, my friends, is the future of planetary salvation.
Rate This:
0 
0
Newmania…
RE: ‘The green issue has religious traits’…
What on EARTH are you talking about, man?
RE the ‘chancers, freaks, and Hitlers’…
Of course we can’t trust them. Where did I say we could? We can’t trust them to administer Income Tax, and there’s no reason to believe they’d do a better job with Green taxes. That’s why we’re a democracy. If they fail you, vote to throw them out. Or give up the ghost, which I’d haqte to se you do.
Re: the taxes I was babbling about…
Please provide evidence that taxes will be raised as a result of Green taxes being introduced. I don’t think there’s even been a White Paper yet.
Re: the current round of stealth taxes…
I didn’t say they weren’t doing that. If we continue with a Labour government, they may just try to ‘stealth’ green taxes – I don’t know. Where did I write that I supported Labour’s current tax policy? A future Conservative or Liberal government would have to deal with climate change too. I think you’re in danger of projecting sterotypes onto a debate that has only just begun.
Re: Africa…
I take it you’re happy to maintain unfair trade and keep the continent a placid source of resources. You’re not clear on this point. If that’s true, there’s no point even continuing this discussion. If I’ve misuderstood, please explain how we disagree. I never said anything about aid: you bought the subject up.
Re The Conservative Party being the expression of right thinking individuals, while New Labour express the insatiable appetite of the state for money and power….
A moment ago you accused ME of being religious in my opinions.
Re the Toyota. No, I don’t understand your point. I’ve read back, and I’m not sure what your objection it it is, apart from the celebrity bandwagon. But I do agree with you that it’s really not a big part of this debate. Let’s stop wasting our time.
Re the Markets…
The effectiveness of the Western liberal markets has been to make everyone IN THE WEST richer. I don’t suppose there’s any point me mentioning Africa again, is there?
Re Mugabe…
No, I’ve not been on a march. Didn’t go on one against Apartheid either. Are you keeping some sort of score? The only march I went on recently was against the war in Iraq. I stand by my opinion of that cock-up – though of course if someone comes up with a coherent argument for our presence there I’l listen.
Re ‘believing in the human race – so what?’…
So what indeed. I think it’s important. Perhaps you have other priorities. Perhaps you only believe in family. Or the Christian Church. Or self-interest. Or the fairies at the bottom of your garden. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Whatever it is, it’s too narrow for me.
I’m also deeply offended that you think I’ve somehow ‘wasted my life’, just because I disagree with you, and am prepared to debate long and hard about it.
I’d like an apology.
And the name is MARKgamon, not just ‘gamon’. I left school a long time ago.
Rate This:
0 
0
PaulD…
They seem to be making a mess of it, don’t they?
Of course, we could just STOP recycling, I suppose. That’d be easier for everyone.
Rate This:
0 
0
Mark Gamon, Newmania -
MG said
Mark I’m sure Newmania didn’t purposely offend and would be happy to apologise, Newmania?
We value “long and hard” debate from both of you chaps. Please shake hands and come out writing..
Rate This:
0 
0
Gamon… I mean Mark: The council has, in my view, done a good job of introducing this scheme. The accompanying booklets were informative and the Environment Committee chairman’s message was mercifully free of political dogma.
Don’t underestimate the impact – it’s the biggest thing to happen in our village for years!
What worries me, apart from the revelation that most of our waste plastic will STILL end up in the ground, is the amateurishness of it all.
The conversation I had is a frightening glimpse of what I suspect is occurring much higher up the chain of command. In other words, no-one really knows what they’re talking about. Can this really be the basis of “the most important document ever to have crossed my desk” (T. Blair)?.
Rate This:
0 
0
Oops, seems the blockquote doesn’t work if you include an [enter] in the text, and FYI folks, I’ve also found that only one URL link per post works, otherwise the post gets held for approval. Just thought I’d mention that.
Rate This:
0 
0
PaulD…
I guess we just have to hope that everybody eventually gets the hang of it.
One alternative I’d like to see is everybody lobbying the manufacturers to use less plastic (and foil, and aluminium) in the first place…
Rate This:
0 
0
MG said
Good point. Do you think it is the fault of supermarkets?
Rate This:
0 
0
Mark Gamon then , if you`d like an apology you are very welcome . Sorry .
I`d like to have [Ed: discreet deletion] with Beyonce Knowles.
Your turn ?
Rate This:
0 
0
Newmania
S’aright. I forgive you. I apologise for any harsh words I may have used to you.
I’m not quite sure why the conversation has turned to the fragrant Beyonce, but I’d just like it put on record I’m more of a Kate Winslet man myself.
Rate This:
0 
0
Jaq – I’d blame the supermarkets, yes. And of course the great British public, that seems to value a thing more if it’s dressed up in hard plastic and four-colour printed board.
A long, long time ago, my mum used to take me to a little shop in Saffron Walden where you could still buy rice and pearl barley and potatoes straight out of sacks stacked behind the counter and everything was given to you in a brown paper bag. Which was of course bio-degradeable, though we weren’t aware that was important at the time.
The supermarkets would probably say they don’t do that any more because the market wouldn’t abide it. For which, read: because it would cut into our shareholder’s dividends.
Thank you for the peacemaking
Rate This:
0 
0
MG – you’re welcome. This blog does have a deserved reputation for good debate and it’s all down to you lot. Keep it up!
Not with Beyonce please Newmania.
I blame the supermarkets for the destruction of markets and the availablity of fresh local produce. Agriculture has suffered and though farmers markets are popping up I think the meat and dairy industry has taken a slow but devastating blow which in turn has affected the general quality of food.
Rate This:
0 
0
Mark – well there’s a thing. Saffron Walden. I omitted geographic reference to avoid embarrassing the worthy Adrian (not his real name) but since you unwittingly established a connection…
He was doing his best, and I have been very complimentary about the environment chairman! It’s the green hysteria that really gets me.
Rate This:
0 
0
I wonder how much has been achieved by all the debate on this page.
I wonder how absurd the human race appears to anyone looking at it from outside.
This is the blog of a tory gentleman. I do not expect to be in the majority when I come over here to post.
I have a very simple, probably simplistic, view of capitalism. This view formed in my mind as early as I can remember. In order to function capitalism demands that we keep on making stuff, and sustain a demand for said stuff. There is a limited amount of stuff on this earth. Unless we curb our consumerism we are going to run out of stuff. Capitalism therefore seems to contain within it the seeds of its own demise. Further, as the sainted Mr Gamon suggests, if we keep polluting the planet in order to fulfill our perceived need for more new shiny stuff, then we will hasten its demise even further.
I know that this analysis lacks the academic credentials of the works of Adam Smith, Marx and even Enid Blyton, but it is the point at which my perceptions begin.
On the whole, why don’t we try being nice to each other. (Except I won’t be nice to Thatcher).
love, peace and orgasms to you all.
Rate This:
0 
0
Phew! Able to post again. Thanks Melissa.
Seems others have been having the same problem. And have been posting great long tracts to make up for it. I won’t join in.
Rate This:
0 
0
I read Boris’s article in the Speccie. I think that most of these hard working middle class people have been cushioned by wealthy parents and subsequently don’t have much experience of the real world. If Boris wants to see angry disadvantaged yet intelligent young adults he should go to one of the rubbish universities. They do have many intelligent students, many of whom simply hadnt got the money or support from their parents to get to one of the great universities.
Rate This:
0 
0
There is a limited amount of stuff on this earth. Unless we curb our consumerism we are going to run out of stuff. Capitalism therefore seems to contain within it the seeds of its own demise. Further, as the sainted Mr Gamon suggests, if we keep polluting the planet in order to fulfill our perceived need for more new shiny stuff, then we will hasten its demise even further. (Vicus Scurra).
But can’t you see, Vicus, that quite a few “Tory gentlemen” feel the same way?
Rate This:
0 
0
Vicus – From what I gather aliens spend a lot of time laughing at our amusingly antiquated preparation of the potato so I wouldn’t care much what they have to say about it The green record of the developed free West is a lot better than its erstwhile alternative but I think you are right ,growth cannot go on forever .
CS Lewis`s Hideous Strength Books and he other are an alternative spiritual imagining of space and Michael Moorcocks “Dancers at the End of Time ” is a quirky funny vision . The future that seems most relevant to me at the moment is Brave New World , where the people are engineered to be happy with what they can be given. K- Pax is worth a dip and Barry Unworth`s “Sacred Hunger” is tremendous on the development of early Capitalism and a good yarn
People look down on Science fiction but I like it , especially short stories. Philip K Dick has been behind lots of films now but the first was Blade Runner (Ridley Scott ….he of Alien). Phillip K Dick himself saw none of his triumph and died in despair before the film and subsequent celebrity began. So did Gerard Manley Hopkins the Victorian Poet .Idlex has described the house style as courteous and poetic. As I am unlikely to master either how about a bit of Gerard Manley Hopkins;
To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dáwn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rólling level úndernéath him steady áir, & stríding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl & gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, — the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty & valour & act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier!
No wónder of it: shéer plód makes plóugh down síllion
Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gáll themsélves, & gásh góld-vermílion.
I wonder how many did that one at school.I wonder if he is still such a staple
Rate This:
0 
0
What Vicus said.
Amazing how we’re all in complete agreement all of a sudden.
Rate This:
0 
0
Not that amazing, Mark. There’s more common ground than may at first appear between people with contrasting views. Misunderstandings become polarised. You sometimes come across as a fan of big, heavy-handed government, when you’re probably not. Newmania (and Vicus by the looks of it) has this idea I’m a flithy rich country gent when I’m not even a gent, let alone a flithy rich one. And so on.
We all paint eachother with single hues and then discover there is, after all, quite a lot in common.
Paradoxically, your traditional Tory hates rampant consumerism more than you might imagine. These are people who were brought up with a make-do-and-mend attitude and the notion that flashy displays of wealth and possessions are vulgar.
Contrast with the other extreme, the Labour-voting council house chav family, mindless worshippers of brand labels who truly believe they deserve their mobile phones, widescreen TVs, designer sportswear, video players etc, want them all now, and quickly ditch them for a new model when boredom sets in, which is usually pretty soon.
In between the extremes, I think you’ll find that an increasing number of people are questioning the disposible society. They know it cannot go on for ever but they are torn. When you can buy a well-made power tool for a tenner, the temptation is enormous. I know several builders who use nothing but this cheap made-in-China kit, happy that “if it does only one job it’s paid for itself, then you can just chuck it away”. They would also rather have a £20 drill nicked from the building site than a £200 one.
So please, Vicus, don’t tar all capitalists with the same brush. Indeed I’m beginning to wonder what a capitalist is these days. If it’s someone who doesn’t believe in an all-powerful state, there are a lot of them around and they do have a conscience, you know.
Rate This:
0 
0
Gemma,
I do actually agree with you to a certain extent. I went to a russel group uni. and know for a fact that they turned down a boy who had straight A’s in every examination he had ever taken and was passionate about the subject he wanted to study. The reason they turned him down was because he was deemed boring since he had very few interesting hobbies! The interviewer seemed to forget that the only reason most young people have so many outside interests is that they are lucky (??)enough to have pushy parents and schools who arrange for them to have so many ex. activities. It is unfair that a child who did not have this, but is intelligent and hard working should be penalised. Most of the people I know who have long lists of outside interests are not actually passionate about any of them, which is a pity as they are spending most of their time doing something that bores them simply to improve their cv’s.
Rate This:
0 
0
Aren’t there prof. people or organisations who groom children (and parents) for application to revered academic institutions? You have to pay.
Rate This:
0 
0
I think so, at any rate I have met people who have said they used them. But a lot of schools make it clear to parents that their child will do better in life if they take extra music lessons, extra sports lessons etc
Rate This:
0 
0
Better in life? That’s debatable in my opinion but I see your point k. Better in life if they gain the correct admission pass or social membership (half the shadow cabinet went to Eton was it?) But children who are dragged from mummies choice of activity to activity in some resigned passivity have never been allowed to be truly bored. What happens to their imagination? How often have they built a ship out of leaves in the garden or constructed something in their head? Children who are continually busied and entertained, expect to be busied and entertained. This is not dependant on income really but on parenting. I think orchestrated kids cannot find their own tune, they just arrogantly expect orchestration even to adulthood. Perhaps that is one reason why people are less inclined to say ‘I’m bored, what can I find to do’ but ‘I’m bored, it’s someone elses fault’.
Rate This:
0 
0
PaulD
I have read your postings here, and usually my views usually diverge very early on.
My definition of capitalism is as described above – the creation of competitive market forces in order to sustain society. I believe this to be deeply flawed.
I define a Tory as someone who puts the market forces at the centre of their politic/ethical standpoint, and therefore is adopting a view based upon a faulty premise. By gentleman, I was merely attempting to be polite, not imposing a class judgement.
The Conservative party have, in my view, adopted the pretence that any opposition to their view results in an interfering, bureaucratic and therefore tyrannical government. A somewhat quaint argument to disguise not having a very stable platform.
I do not want a government that tells me what to do, but one that will, to some extent, protect me from those wishing to do me harm in an illegal fashion, and one that protects the interests and wellbeing of those unable to compete with the rich buggers – the weak, the poor, the infirm, the minorities.
Because of this basic viewpoint I have never voted Conservative, have not voted Labour since the days pre-Kinnock, and mostly find myself effectively disenfranchised.
I am sure I have more in common with you than we have differences.
Rate This:
0 
0
Agree with you one hundred percent Jaq. I do not think people bought up like this are actually more capable or interesting people (in fact they tend to be boring to speak to for more than ten mins). I do think though that this superchild attitude puts a lot more pressure on parents. I have a friend who feels guilty that she only lets her five year old go to a couple of cv enhancing activities a week whereas all the other children are at activities five nights a week.
Rate This:
0 
0
The Conservative party have, in my view, adopted the pretence that any opposition to their view results in an interfering, bureaucratic and therefore tyrannical government.
Vicus, you know very well that anyone who questions the NuLab view is automatically a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, nationalistic, blood-sucking tyrant. One word out of place and they’ll have you labelled. I know – I’ve been there and it’s frightening.
Rate This:
0 
0
‘But a lot of schools make it clear to parents that their child will do better in life if they take extra music lessons, extra sports lessons etc’ (k)
I was always told a CV should be no more than 2 pages long. Is this correct? I’m 26, have attended 4 different educational establishments and and had 20 different jobs. I struggle to keep mine down to 2 pages and invariably miss out all the extra-curricular stuff, which I see as trivial.
I never bother to write ‘grade 4 violin’, ‘three star skiing badge’ or list the various chess teams I’ve represented. This is partly because I haven’t played the violin for 12 years, partly because I fail to see how being able to ski or play chess will help me get a job and partly because it’s clogged up with the 20 different jobs I’ve had over the last 8 years.
I do have a ‘hobbies and interest’ section where I mention the cricket team I play for and the fact I like fishing occasionally. Would my CV be better if I ‘forgot’ about a couple of the part-time jobs I’ve had during my time at uni, and instead included the fact I played a few games of chess for the local club team?
I dunno, maybe I should use a smaller font? Is there a minimum size font you should use?
Rate This:
0 
0
When I was at St. Scruffs red brick university I thought I was much to cool to do any of the nerdy CV ish things I also didn’t come from the sort of background that gave me any understanding of what it might mean. I strongly suspect that CV stuff is used as code for selection of a very traditional kind indeed.
This is why all teachers and all politicians know , any sort of selection will be the same sort of selection really. I certainly vouch for teachers on that
Rate This:
0 
0
I just finished uni the May. While I was there all my spare time was taken up either working in call centres (32 hours per week + occasionally overtime in my final year) or going out and spending my wages at various ‘student nights’.
I was in the uni cricket club, but this was because I enjoyed it more that CV building. A lot of the sports students that were in the cricket club seemed to be loathed to be there at times mind you. I think they were pretty much forced to join a set number of sports clubs. Nets and fielding practice once a week was the only exercise I got though, they were always at it one way or another.
I did a specialist degree for one type of local government work though. Any future employer is only going to at the fact I have that degree, have the appropriate professional qualification (which I hope to have by the end of next year) and what work experience I have in that field. The fact I’ve worked in a zillion call centres, used to be able to play the violin, am quite handy at chess or can ski is going to be largely irrelevant.
Tell you what newmania, seen as I’m bored I might try and re-write my CV to include my on-piste achievements and unbeated record at Cardiff Chess Club. It’s tempting fate though, one day someone in HR will ask me to produce my 3 star ski certificate, then I’m doomed.
Rate This:
0 
0
In the Mayoral application ,( mine currently posted on some Dick Whittington pretext),you were supposed to describe a challenge you have faced .
It looks like possession of a crippled child or something similar is a prerequisite of a really top job . I still find it hard to imagine the mentality of someone who use such a thing for electoral purposes .
Rate This:
0 
0
You’re being mischevious Newmania.
Rate This:
0 
0
Steven_L
I think it is better to tailor each cv for the specific job you are going for. Have you looked on the prospects site (www.prospects.ac.uk)
Rate This:
0 
0
I haven’t looked at prospects for a long time, thanks for reminding me K.
‘In the Mayoral application ,( mine currently posted on some Dick Whittington pretext),you were supposed to describe a challenge you have faced.’ (newmania)
There was that time when you couldn’t decide what name to use for your blogging.
Rate This:
0 
0
I have many names .
. What on earth made you plump for the ludicrously implausible” Steven”. I admit it has suggestions of the gay cavalier , the soldier poet , the wild eyed romantic but you have gone to far . In real life no ones name is so thrillingly evocative as Steven . The very sound of it whisks me away to exotic times and places. ” Steven” I am walking around the dead of Culloden in the pitiless moonlight . “Steven” In white morning frost light I watch the Tsar and hid family crumple in blood and snow. ” Steven “…to much….. to much.!
The secret magic of the name Steven overwhelms my senses , Such powerful naming is for dreams and visions not for the prosaic life we have . Stevens leave that to their servants .
What gorgeous exquisite could wear such name ? It cannot be real ; reveal the dowdy plumage of your true life !
Rate This:
0 
0
Some of us have seen beyond the pixels and actually know what he looks like…and what you do.
Rate This:
0 
0
Perhaps you could give us further details. Considering that South India’s hydraulic civilization 2,300 years ago was of a standard the west didn’t reach till the second half of the nineteenth century (remember Fleet Street was a literal open sewer until one day in 1857 when the wind changed direction, and those assembled in Westminster decided they’d better cover it up), I can’t resist the suspicion that there was something rather presumptious in your forefather’s attitude.
Rate This:
0 
0
As for all the good deeds that Boris’s prospective interns have done, that is because of the modern phenomenum of the gap year. If Jasper or Priscilla told their parents they wanted a bucketful of money so they could spend a year touring the world, getting sloshed, fornicating, and sniggering at the natives, then the odds of them getting it would be small.
However when they say they want to ‘connect with those less privileged than they are’ or ‘to make a difference’ then daddy’s cheque book flies open, even though the wash-a-leper brigade are not making any difference at all to anybody except to those who charge fat fees to organize the charade. Does anybody really tnink they need to import public schoolboys from the UK to look after the animals in Colombo zoo?
Rate This:
0 
0
… or indeed import public school boys to “visit the poor “, in London ,which they actually do .
I suppose its degraded version of the Grand Tour. Most of the reactions to otherness could have easily been written in advance of the expierience.
Rate This:
0 
0
Stephen Jones said
reading some of the sunday papers, especially the columnists, it still is. And Westminster still tries to cover it up from time to time.
Rate This:
0 
0
Mark Gamon -
Your comments reveal a deep distrust of power and any system that facilities or encourages its pursuit. This apparent concern for the plight of the underdog is somewhat undermined by the patronising assumption that people cannot look out for themselves. Take your comments on personal debt for instance. Yes it is piling up, but so long as people can pay it back, that’s fine and allows people to enjoy luxuries previously beyond the reach of ordinary folk. For some people debt is a problem, but I find the idea that some overweening moral guardian should protect us from temptation deeply offensive.
This instinct to regard people as helpless victims or powerful oppressors is sympomatic of the left-wing control freakery creeping back into public life. It legitimises all kinds of illiberal legislation and encourages the wretched victim culture that is prevalent today. Like all enthusiastic socialists, you conveniently ignore the crashing failure of left-wing politics, and nit-pick at the failings of the free market. Tell the Chinese and the Indians that they are wrong to embrace capitalism; they are enjoying enprecedented levels of prosperity. By contrast, all Marxist theory has delivered is authoritarianism, inefficiency, poverty and suffering.
I think that most socialists secret acknowledge this, so they’ve changed tack. Instead of claiming that Marxism is the best way to achieve a prosperous society, they’ve given up on the idea. Instead, they say that this aim is undesirable and brow beat us into regarding the pursuit of a better life as selfish and unfulfilling. At least in doing so they are showing their true colours as mean-spirited misanthropes.
Of course the old left-wing political terms still have negative connotations. No one is going to garner much support for killing off wealth and aspiration under the banner of a Trot or a Marxist. But call yourself an environmentalist and you’re onto a winner. Mother Nature has simply replaced the working classes as the Left’s focus of concern – a new underdog to shout for. Many socialists feel betrayed by the working classes. They liked them when they were powerless and put-upon, but their empowerment over the past 20 years has seen them rise from victim status to little capitalists. They have been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth and power that they once counterpointed.
I for one celebrate this shift in the balance of power. The cloth-cap-and-cobblestones worldview, with plucky workers battling rapacious fatcats, is an anachronism. It is telling that the people whose primary stated concern was delivering a better life for the masses seem disgruntled that this has been achieved through an ideology to which they are hostile. One might be tempted to believe that they are less interested in their declared goal than in the deprivations that the ideology they favour would have placed on everyone else.
Rate This:
0 
0
I’ll see your James Blunt and raise you a Marilyn Manson.
Rate This:
0 
0
Tayles – A superb post which I will hang on my wall. Steady authority in every sentence .I only wish I could emulate it .
How absolutely right you are.Please come back often
Rate This:
0 
0