Never Believe

I grew up wholly enjoying the quality of the content of the BBC: the exciting dramas, good sport coverage, high-brow political humour and analysis, entertaining and groundbreaking radio stations, the lauded lack of advertising. What changed?

Well, during the years of Labour government, BBC News seemingly dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, the BBC dropped key programming and it was outbid on countless occasions in areas where one believes our national broadcaster, of such great global reach and reputation, should be succeeding. There are a multitude of different factors that could explain this, which could quite easily write an essay by itself. I won’t, but I will mention my distaste for the most ridiculous waste of licenceholders’ money: BBC3.

As the television format came of age and the average consumer expanded from 5 analogue channels to countless digital, the mighty beast that is the BBC decided it would flex its corporate muscles and buy up several surplus channels. This was a mistake. BBC3 has supposedly a £93m budget annually. For what? Tonight one can be informed by its 9pm slot: Addicted to Boob Jobs and find out why so many twenty-somethings are continually having breast enlargement surgery. Or you wait until Monday for your weekly treat and cosy up on the sofa to watch Snog Marry Avoid?, where “busty…’double sexy’ Chelsea” is out on the prowl. That, or you could avoid BBC3 like the plague!

This is such a ridiculous waste of money and when they trot out the excuse that they can’t afford to make decent programming anymore, well, we all know where to look.

The Home Secretary today tells us that we should potentially think about getting involved to help others who are victims of crime when we see it. Whilst I have done this before, perhaps foolishly, I still can’t help but find this a hypocritical from a woman who told us she wouldn’t feel safe walking in Hackney and with her Cabinet colleague Harriet Harman walking the streets of her constituency with a stab-vest, flanked by police officers.

Why would anyone in their right mind get involved when this is the message Labour MPs are giving out? Thankfully I’ve never been in a situation involving a knife in my direction, but if I were to, I know where the line is to fight back and the line to surrender anything of value. I have insurance for my possessions, but I don’t fancy my life insurance would be much consolation in such a situation.

It seems to me that a considerable amount of journalism these days not only writes off the young as criminals (admittedly, not always falsely), but also as completely politically apathetic and ignorant when it involves anything to do with the UK. Now I’m sure if the young person fits in the criminal category, then chances are they fit in the politically ignorant category.

However, at least in my experience, both are in the minority. In school, at university and whilst out in the wider world, I have come across teenagers and young adults particularly interested in politics. From the limited number of teenagers that I come into contact with today, a great number are also interested in politics.

Whilst I’m not foolish enough to believe that there could be a majority of “young people” who are overly interested in politics, I don’t see this overwhelming majority suddenly in obvious appearance once one passes the late-20s and upward threshold, so why do the young ones get singled out constantly?

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this generation of young people grow up to be more politically interested as the political parties will have changed more often in our lifetimes than in our parents up to this point. I fit in what is widely recognised as “youth” (the 15-24 category) and I’m interested in politics. Are you?