Gloomy thoughts on a dark evening

Friday evening isn't the best time to do any sort of analysis of the state of the country. Too tired, one too many glasses of wine. But then this isn't the best blog in the world, so I'm just going to go for it, but don't you be expecting any sharp insights, OK?

It used to be the case that parents would cajole their children into staying with education, and more or less behaving themselves, by way of the promise of a good job if you stayed the course through school, and ideally go on to get your A-levels and perhaps even a degree. Hang on in there, they would say, and the good times will follow. You can get a car, a house, enough income to enjoy a good standard of living and money quietly going away into a pension fund that would grow substantially. A long-term deal which was demonstrably paying off for those parents, who'd followed exactly that course.

I have no idea of the average age of the three regular readers of this blog, but let's all imagine that we're in our teens or early 20s. What prospects do we see? That's right - sod all. While the Observer generation is now hitting a wall of unemployment, at least in most cases the deal paid off pretty well for 30 years, and early retirement is at least partially successful for many. But for the young?

You can, if you wish, take on a debt amounting to several tens of thousands of pounds to get a degree. When you finish, there will be enormous competition for a job, and graduates - complete with huge debt - may get work stacking shelves or training to serve burgers. Even the 'better' jobs will be in sectors very vulnerable to economic ups and downs, and difficult to build into a life-long career. Buying a house will be out of the question. Pension contributions will be terribly difficult to make, and will buy very little even over the long term.

And whose fault is all this? Mum & Dad, that's who. Or your Uncle Observer, or whatever other twat repeatedly voted for the politicians that allowed - encouraged - this country to rack up such enormous debts payable by the next generation.

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do."

I've no idea how this will play out. At the moment we see young people protesting against the establishment by way of pitching tents in public spaces and being touchingly earnest and well behaved. This is of course going to have zero effect on the establishment, other than a few meaningless resignations among the clergy, who don't, let's face it, have much impact on the running of the economy.

I suspect it may be that our young people eventually read up on how young French people did it in 1968, and then things will get a bit sweaty.