Back to the future?

Am I alone in feeling like the whole political debate is backward-looking and stacked against younger generations? It seems to me that anyone under 50 is in a different world from the powers that be. To be clear - this isn't a dig at individuals over 50. Just observation of the general direction of policy.
Brexit - itself an overindulgence in misplaced nostalgia. The very essence of its message "take back control" or "make Britain Great again" is about turning back time. It's quite understandable: when we are anxious, we instinctively look back to the point when everything felt ok. But it doesn't always make sense. The world has moved on. Trade deals are done differently now. Climate issues should be paramount across borders but were barely mentioned in the early 1970s. Public health issues cross borders. Security and terrorism-concerns cross borders. The world has been opened up via the internet and easy travel. Research is a multi-disipline, multi-cultural, cooperative process. Borders are boring. Young people expect to travel the world and to see and experience different cultures.
Energy - the future is green. It cannot be oil. We know it. Nor can it be fracking. Renewable energy is getting cheaper and more accessible by the day. And new technologies, now in their infancy, are apparently creating energy that will ultimately be more or less free of charge. The British Government's stance on reducing subsidies for renewable energy is bonkers. Air pollution cannot be ignored. The commitment to overpriced energy from new nuclear plants seems absurdly old-fashioned.
Schools - bring back grammar schools. Really? Even though all the research tells us they offer privilege to the few and do little to help the bigger picture?
Racism - the return to the racism of the 1960s has been truly shocking to me and to many. It's happening daily on our streets and in our shops and restaurants and buses and hospitals and schools and workplaces. It beggars belief that ALL our politicians have not taken a clear and repeated stand against this.
Fox hunting - another, unpopular and indefensible throwback. Other animal rights issues will undoubtedly surface once we throw off the constraints of Brussels.
Workers rights - gradually improved over decades but now ripe for slashing once free of EU regulations. Liam Fox et al are quite open about wanting this. They will take us back to the 1960s.
Housing - the youngsters of today don't stand a chance of home ownership unless the bank of Mum and Dad can help. The current government seems wholly incapable or uninterested in tackling this.
University - who can afford a university education now? The scale of the debt incurred is not for the faint hearted. Everyone now in power benefited from a time when it was freely available to all, yet they deny it to today's kids.
Pensions - for those of us who are not yet there, retirement moves ever further into our old age, whilst financial provisions get chipped away. The government was required by law to report on its pensions plans this week. It has failed to do so, presumably because it will not be good news for "ordinary working people".
Gender-equality: on The One show yesterday Mrs May and her husband talked about their domestic bliss, and how they recognised boys' and girls' jobs. I thought this was a joke. No. Which century??
It brings me back to considering the word "Conservative". It really is for many a place of safety in the past. Conserving what used to be. That might serve well to soothe the anxieties of older people, but it's crazily unfair on younger people. This is their country too.
Progress is unstoppable and we should embrace it. 
Think of King Cnut.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brexit Apathy

“The death of democracy...will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” These words of Robert M Hutchins seem rather pertinent to our current situation. Every day I ask myself again whether it's time to “let it go” and accept Brexit. And every time I ask that question, two big issues rise up to block the way. The first is the unbelievably cavalier way in which the individuals most affected by this are being treated – the EU nationals who live in the UK and the UK nationals who live in other EU countries. We have, as the saying goes, thrown them under a bus. And when you consider the stir caused this week by CCTV footage of a London jogger doing exactly that to a woman on the pavement, it brings home what a shocking analogy it is. As long as the politicians insist on playing games of chess with real peoples' lives, there will be millions of us who dig in our heels and say “unacceptable”. The second big stumbling block to accepting the out...
Read more

Windrush - twig or branch?

I can't stop thinking about the so-called Windrush scandal. I say so-called, because I think there's a danger that we have got hold of the wrong end of the stick if this is 'only' about the Windrush generation. Or rather, we have grabbed firmly on to the twig, but if we run with that, it will snap away, leaving the main branch, the bigger point, unmoved. Don't get me wrong - the Windrush scandal is certainly shocking. The way individuals have been treated correlates with my definition of criminal. But these individual cases are but twigs from a thicker branch of systemic hostility to "the other". If we allow ourselves to be focused on individual cases, we allow Theresa May and the Government and, in fact, ourselves, off the hook. If the concern is that person A is deported in error, an apology can be made, decisions reversed and even, potentially, compensation made. And there the story dies, with no hint of "lessons having been lear...
Read more

Brexit - Secret Option Number Three

There's talk of riots if Brexit doesn't go ahead. It's hard to know whether this is a serious possibility – a proposed protest at the Supreme Court in December was hastily cancelled at the last minute when barely a few dozen showed any interest. But let's just for a moment assume it is a real and credible possibility. The prevailing narrative over-simplifies the choice – implement the result of the referendum or don't. Implement it and cause certain impoverishment to our nation. Ignore it, and risk riots and undermining the cause of democracy. But why is our vision so narrow? What if there is a secret option number three? There are five Ws that help us get to the bottom of a story – What? When? Who? Where? And Why? The first four are essentially fact-based and are in themselves often rather dull. They are answered easily enough with regard to the referendum result. The interesting question is the last one – “why”. And over a year later, we are still no clearer...
Read more