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The principal excuse from government spokesmen commenting on the our poor showing in the recent Unicef report on children was that the data was out of date. It’s the excuse they make fro every derogatory report. In this case did they really believe that the public would say, “But, of course, in the last year or so I have noticed how suddenly all the young people look so happy and how they are suddenly so polite to others”. There are just one or two who have taken to shooting their peers in their own homes.
Jane Godley said something on Radio 4’s Saturday Live which made me think. She was talking about her husbands family using guns and hse stressed that they were not something they felt big or proud about carrying; they were just a tool, only to be fired in extreme situations. And that is the big difference with the young people in South London. Their guns define their status. They are their “emperor’s clothes”. And that is what makes them so dangerous.
The recent outbreak was obviously a serious news item. However, it could not warrant the endless news coverage in every form of media, the top billing and the never ending stream of experts. It would appear that our UK media is so lacking in energy and vision that it falls with gratitude on any story which can be covered by sending a reporter and cameraman to stand outside a deserted factory in the middle of the night and relay banal platitudes to us.
I was vindicated in this belief when one reporter ventured into a nearby town to drum up indignation and fear, only to be met with a wall of total indfference. Well done the people of Suffolk!
