Call me a pessimist....

Call me a pessimist, but what the hell is going on with this country at the moment? Has everyone gone a little bit mad? And more to the point, has everyone lost the will to care?! Everyone has a degree nowadays. That’s millions of well educated young people – socially aware graduates – many of whom are either out of work or in dead end jobs (it’s a recession don’t you know) all over the UK. So what happened to the idea that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow? We have lost whatever little faith we had in politicians, we all complain about how badly Labour screwed things up, reel in disgust at MP’s spending thousands in expenses having their gardens/homes/chandeliers tinkered with while we’re all skint and miserable. We’re involved in a war that most of the country disagreed with from the start, and whose very basis was fuelled by yet more political lies. People like Nick Griffin are playing on our dissatisfaction and political malaise and winning popularity spouting nonsense about white supremacy, and what options are left to change this? Well, we have to choose between smug publicity whore David Cameron, Brown again (I needn’t comment on that one) and the lovely Nick Clegg, who is just thrilled the others are so utterly vile that he might actually get a look in. Either that, or lets go for a proper change. Something really different. Whose available, lets see, oh yes, the KKK’s new buddies - the British National Party. Come on! The depressing thing is (oh yes, that wasn’t the worst part) that none of us likes it. We all complain about it, often quite eloquently, when we’re down the pub, and then continue or dissatisfaction silently the following day. I know it’s the British prerogative to have a stiff upper lip and all, but forgive me if I’m mistaken, but wasn’t the whole idea of democracy that we could elect someone who represents our interests?

So how is it then that a nation of such well educated, socially and politically aware young people has allowed such a depressing list of options?
We know our parents royally messed up, letting Maggie do arms deals with Iraq on the sly (as well as stealing milk, obviously) then tried to amend the situation and were won over by young Tony’s charismatic grin, watching passively as he toadied up to yet another mad Bush. But come on, live and learn! The similarity between Blair and Cameron’s smarmy tactics is horribly obvious. What’s the point of remaining a staunch supporter of any political party if the blighters are all the same? There must be some of us out there better suited to the job. Some of the many honest people who are guided by wanting to make a change rather than by the potential size of their expense account!

In previous decades, the young were guided by materialism, by aspiring to live like glamorous celebrities, by greed. We could buy the lives we wanted, an interest in politics was a side thought. But for gods sake, put the credit card down, cut it in half, we can’t afford it anymore. The vast majority of graduates are slaving away in call centres, working as recruitment consultants, or out of work altogether, struggling to pay off massive student debts by and legitimate means available. Was that the master plan? No! And who qualifies as a celebrity now? Jordan? Paris Hilton? Victoria Beckham? Isn’t that enough to curb our aspirations for materialism and fame?! We’ve got more brains, and more potential than this! I know we all express our displeasure and irritation about the current state of affairs down the pub (when we can afford to go that is – thanks again Brown) but lets get off our collective arse and try and come up with some better options to change the situation. The previous generation buggered it up, and it’s our job to fix it. We’ve got the intelligence, the awareness and the numbers, all we need to do is ditch the feeling that we’re not in control. This is a good country, and we’ve been apathetic for too long. Even America has managed to sort itself out to some extent. Yes, it took some serious, serious mistakes to get them in gear, but they’ve got Obama now. He’s yet to prove himself, but at least they got a candidate in the running that you could afford to put some faith in!

It’s time to sort it out, and it’s impossible that our current political leaders are the best we have to offer. We’ve got the time, and the skill to fix this, I’m sure of it. Hey – maybe I’m not such a pessimist after all.