There is something about the word “uniform” which is simply filled with negative connotations. The answer is quite clearly that uniform means everything is the same. There is no independent thought, no creativity, just bland conformity. So why is it that the concept of uniform is giving me so much trouble on a bright Saturday morning, with the joyful haze of that Tuesday-Wednesday All Nighter for the US midterms still gripping my consciousness? Well, there’s only one way to find out… Read More

This morning, the Sun proclaimed:

“The problem for society is to catch children BEFORE they go wrong.”

Of course, it is normally dangerous to argue with the Sun, lest one be branded a terrorising, judge-loving, paedophile. But it’s important to be aware of how accurately their thoughts will be reflecting vast swathes of the nation. But then, once I realise this, I plunge into despair as, yet again, the country descends into paranoid fervour: and this time about an item of clothing no less. Read More

On the one hand, we have a government which is going to tell the future generations that all is well. That we have “freedom, fairness, civil responsibilities [and] democracy”. But then notice the clever avoidance of the words rights, and liberties that are normally associated with the word “civil”. Then assess that in comparison with yesterday’s headlines, telling us how “the Prime Minister wants the government to have the power to override court rulings”. Might it then be worth considering that you can’t square the two?

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Is it just me or are other people beginning to smell the whiff of media disappointment that the country has yet to collapse into anarchy as a result of new laws allowing people to drink around the clock? In fact, this so-called liberalisation of our drinking laws is looking more and more like a damp squib. Indeed, it has brought back memories of a certain song we all know and love. Gawd Bless Bill Haley:

“One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, drink?” Maybe.
“Five, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, drink?” Looking rather unlikely.
“Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, drink?” I don’t think so.
“We’re gonna drink around the clock tonight?” If you want to die, then go ahead.
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Choice is the buzzword of everyone these days. We like choice. Choice is fundamental to capitalism. Every day we make decisions on an enormous number of things. In fact, we take choice so much for granted that we don’t even think about it when we make that “decision” between a Mars and a Snickers. Either way, it lines someone’s pocket somewhere.

So, then, it would not be alien to us to make choices in areas where choice is taboo. The public sector for instance. Starting with schools, then hospitals and ultimately which ambulance you’d prefer to be driven in because it has a lower accident rate and higher quality speed drivers.

The question is, do we really want that choice? And if so, will it achieve anything?
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Let me start my first post in ages with a little essential background. I am a 20 year old University student. I have recently returned from working in a summer camp in the USA. It was excellent fun, a great challenge and a privilege to work with such wonderful kids.

Ahh. Children. Love ’em or hate ’em, they are going to be the ones paying your pension in the future. Indeed, some of those children will be tomorrow’s new weasel-faced politicians. Others will be your lobbyists, pressure group members, animal rights extremists and maybe even a few criminals in there too.

In other words, they are the society of the future. But what kind of society will that be?
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As a nation, the past few years we Brits have become pretty adept at getting wound up by things that, in the grand scheme of things, are not really that important. The march against the Iraq War was one of the few instances in which the British people did get something right. But since then, we’ve hardly done anything, and a lot of people have been naive enough to believe Tony Blair that Iraq really is better now. Such people need to consult Today In Iraq.

But this post isn’t about Iraq. Iraq is the only exception to the thesis I am about to launch into. I believe that Britain has a problem. It’s not one that people will be prepared to admit to, and it appears to be something buried deep within the psyche of the nation. The symptom of this problem is responsible for some of the problems we see in society in terms of a small minority of people (not just children) who have no respect for the law. On top of that, we have people who like the law only when it is on their side. But underneath all this is one of the problems: Britain’s obsession with abuse; that violence solves all, and feeding a general culture of misguidance.
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On the 1st of March I wrote a post complaining that the nation is slowly whipping itself up into a frenzy about ever smaller and smaller things in terms of national significance.

This hasn’t been better summed up than in the nonsense of the past couple of days. I’ve been finding it hard to believe that people are seriously getting themselves worked up over an item of clothing, but when the Express announced its new “Crusade!” today that hoodies should be banned, I realised that this nation is in the grip of a seizure of stupidity, led by the moronic “free press”. We love to hail our free press as the finest in the world, holding the government to account. But they sure are pillocks.
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