𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

If there’s a true wish in the hearts of parents, it’s that their children have a better life than they’ve had. Of course, better doesn’t always mean more money. Absolutely not. Healthy and happy – yes. But I think ‘better’ also includes achieving their dreams and aspirations. It’s been said that my generation, millennials, will be the first who don’t fare as well as their parents. Looking at my own situation – at least financially – I can well believe that.

But what’s really scary is that prospects look set to fall even further with the next generation. All the warning signs are there, with 743,000 young people aged 16 to 24 unemployed in the UK: an 11-year high. The benefits crisis is fuelling a lot of this, handing young people a reasonably lucrative option for doing absolutely nothing.

It’s something that the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham – who even as a Conservative councillor I have time for – has vowed to tackle. That’s why I was quite astounded to hear the new plan for so-called NEETS (not in education, employment or training) and that is to identify them… from the age of four.

The idea originated with Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, who is now tasked with turning around the UK’s youth unemployment crisis. He said that “the warning signs are there from a very early, early age” before adding “primary schools should be identifying children who are at risk.” The risk factors include poverty, poor mental health or being in care.

Well, honest to goodness, I don’t think I’ve read a more depressing idea in some time.

When I’m whinging about something, parents always seem to have a story to bring you down to earth with a bump. The time my father-in-law’s brand new Christmas bike was sold to the pawn shop is one such sad tale – and the fact he didn’t know what an egg was until the age of eight. They were of course loved, but grew up in often pressed circumstances.

By today’s metrics they’d have no doubt been singled out before they’d have even had a chance to know who they are, let alone what they want from life. Of course struggling children should be given every bit of help they need but that’s a totally different thing from putting them on the future unemployment list.

Are we really going to tell children that they are at risk of never getting a job?! God, talk about a low-aspiration Britain. We need to be showing children from all backgrounds the greatness they can achieve, not putting them into a box saying what they can’t.

Talk about going down the toilet…

I have a recurring nightmare.

I’m certain dream experts will tell you it means something worrying about my psyche, but I have it at least once a month. It includes rows upon rows of toilets that can’t be used as they don’t have a door, or there’s no loo roll or they’re just in a hideous state.

So it was with abject horror that I read about the new ‘squat loos’ in Cambridge – that cost £1 a go no less. The picture of them is even worse. I have so many questions, none of them positive.

I don’t know who had this bright idea, but apparently it’s to appease foreign tourists to the area who prefer them over the usual kind. My verdict is that if a hole in the ground is now what we’re offering people, Britain really has gone down the toilet.

Progress!

My journey to golfing greatness continues. Okay, perhaps not greatness…and more like not immediately being frogmarched off the course due to my inability to actually hit the ball.

After overcoming the weird rib injury (caused by overenthusiastic and, most probably, questionable efforts on the driving range) I managed to get my first ever par! For the non-golfers this means getting the ball into the hole in the amount of times you should be able to do it in.

Hole ten. Middlesbrough Golf Course. Woo hoo!

At that moment the PGA Tour beckoned. However, things seem to have gone south again. It’s all part of the charm… apparently.