On Mobility

Here is something to consider: "tomorrow's professional is today growing up in a family richer than seven in ten of all families in the UK" says former Home Secretary Alan Milburn Sunday. This means that lawyers beget lawyers, doctors doctors, accountants accountants and so on and so forth. This not particularly surprising since the motivated wealthy guard access to the best opportunities via internships, professional introductions, exclusive networking and private schools which account for 75% of the professions. Social mobility, always questionable given Britain's ancient social classes, more rigid in the economic downturn which leaves fewer jobs at the top and everywhere. Any parent the fool who ignores this phenomenon. A solution might be to direct one's child towards above average opportunity like renewable energy or elderly something-or-other; teach them Chinese or Spanish. If not private school, grammar - which means pushing the brats hard in their academics. The alternative today's yobs, who are often in trouble with unwanted pregnancy, alcohol and drug (The Times reports that a million Britons used coke last year and 60 children admitted to hospital with acute cocaine poisoning; these stats a month after Britain dubbed "Europe's cocaine capital" by the UN). It is no good if our talented never see the light due to their birth station but it is also not government's job to bring this talent forward. It starts at home then the community.

Two markers of Englishness:
1. Starting from today, British children from the age ten are to be routinely asked by GPs how much alcohol they drink.
2. English Heritage is to rewrite its guides to ensure they can be understood by visitors with the reading age of a ten-year old.