RE: “More snakes than ladders: the life of a young NEET,” by Peter Hyman and Shuab Gamote, TNW #484
This is the best thing I’ve ever read about this subject and the task ahead is huge. As a parent of a neurodivergent and autistic 17-year-old who in his words “hated every single day” of being at high school, I see the schools as factories with a high failure rate. They aren’t suitable for so many kids, but the measure of success is still academic qualifications. If they were businesses they would be shut down.
I’m also an employer in the hospitality industry – it’s the most difficult period financially in the whole time I’ve had a business. We simply don’t have the financial means to spend time training.
Gez Davidson
Excellent article – and I share the frustration of not really knowing how best to help young people launch into adult life.
The uncomfortable truth is that the state school system no longer feels fit for purpose. Between the philosophies of Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and austerity, we have lost many of the structures that once allowed young people to enter the workforce, learn on the job, and build careers through respected vocational routes.
Jean-Marc Le Feuvre
The point about losing confidence after being rejected for jobs is so true.
It happened to me in the 1980s. Despite a degree, two years travelling and working in Australia, and two years of UK work before that, I couldn’t get a job for about six months when I returned. I was on the verge of depression and could hardly leave the house. Eventually I got a good job and had a successful career, but I’ve never forgotten that feeling of being worthless.
Tess Wright
Suggested Reading
More snakes than ladders: the life of a young NEET
RE: “Putin’s next move,” by Paul Mason, TNW #484
One thorny problem with Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump, is that they have no incentive to back down. In both cases, loss of power could spell personal disaster. Perpetual escalation is thus a viable path for both.
RSP Zatzen
If at some point Putin feels he has nothing to lose, what is to stop him escalating threats to use nuclear weapons, or even using a small device in Ukraine to see what Europe’s reaction would be. He can safely assume that Trump would do little to support Europe.
Will Douglas-Mann
RE: “The media’s crisis addicts,” by Tom Baldwin, TNW #484
This is one of the best articles I’ve read on this subject.
However, one thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that Keir Starmer was involved, in his role as director of public prosecutions, in the prosecutions of journalists over phone hacking. I’m convinced this is why most of the right wing media have had it in for him from the start.
Peter Fitzgerald
The most depressing part of shopping at my local Co-op are the headlines on the newspaper stand. Has it ever been thus?
Keith Brisley
Thanks for articulating so clearly what I struggle to – it’s why I love TNW.
Timothy Mills
Suggested Reading
The Westminster media’s fatal addiction to crisis is breaking politics
RE: “What young teens can see on TikTok,” by Lucy Reade, TNW #484
I’m all in favour of a ban. However, the platforms are just refining content from society as a whole, so while this is definitely a disproportionately large vector, it’s not the root cause.
Alistair Knight
I hate to say it, but no amount of “safeguards” are going to stop teens and younger kids accessing this type of content no matter how stringent they are. Tech-savvy youngsters will get around them.
Even a total ban is no safeguard, it is not difficult to fool an age-rating check. We can moan about content available to our children all we like, but the internet is uncontrollable.
Adam Primhak
RE: “Starmer forgot about parliament,” by Marie Le Conte, TNW #484
Very good analysis. I have been an advocate of Andy Burnham, but his apparent backtracking on his pro-EU stance bothers me. It not only makes him look opportunist and slippery, it lets Nigel Farage set the agenda.
Has Burnham got the confidence to back himself and say “this is who I am, and this is what I stand for, and if you don’t like it don’t vote for me”? I’m not so sure.
Will Goble
Burnham should stay in Manchester. Starmer has been in office for barely two years – all this nonsense is being knocked up by the right wing press. This paper and Labour MPs should get their heads down and fight the right wing, not each other.
Starmer has made mistakes, but overall he’s not doing badly. Look at the economy, jobs, inflation, international relations, the Renters’ Rights bill.
Richard Robinson
Starmer is not a failure. He is a wartime prime minister with a lousy economic plate – not his fault. This scrap arises from an ill-informed press and the Labour Party wanting to walk on water. The Corbynistas in my local party are delighted.
Eile Gibson
RE: “Fifa’s dynamic pricing own goal,” by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, TNW #484
Is world football a tragedy, a farce, or just plain funny? It’s all now so far removed from the sport I fell in love with 40 years ago that I struggle to hold strong feelings either way.
Kevin Davies
Suggested Reading
Trump’s money-grubbing World Cup plans are thrown into reverse
RE: “Britain’s train wreck,” by Patience Wheatcroft, TNW #484
From seeing two old people faint in the Eurostar queue at an incredibly hot Gare du Nord today, a note to anyone on a panel with Farage. From now on, please ask: first, have you the balls to visit any airport this summer and tell everyone sweating through security, from infants to the frail, that Brexit was great?
Second, when will you admit that your campaign to leave Europe was simply the monetisation of misery for millions of travellers every hour?
Jonathan Allen
RE: “Was Winston Churchill any good at painting?” by Rosalind Ormiston, TNW #484
In the summer of 1927 Walter Sickert read that Clementine Churchill had been hit by an omnibus in Knightsbridge. He hurried to her bedside. Winston was there and they got on like a house on fire.
Possibly my favourite picture by Churchill is in the Chartwell dining room, of a dinner party. The man on the right with a beard is Walter Sickert.
Robert Boston
BELOW THE LINE
RE: “Rivals shows the Tories how to win again,” by Lucy Reade, TNW #484.
I was young in the 80s and worked in the City during the late 80s. The world was not so polarised then. I might, for example, have “accidentally” kissed a Tory while squiffy. Jilly Cooper’s world was a million miles away from mine, but I loved the books.
Jane Clemetson
RE: “Elon Musk, space invader,” by Matt Muir, TNW #484.
More reasons not to buy anything this crypto-fascist megalomaniac produces.
Alexander Blackburn
RE: “On scientific fraud,” by Philip Ball, TNW #483.
Philip Ball writes perceptively on fallibility in science. The notion that “falsification of hypotheses by experiment is the only route to reliable knowledge” is indeed disparaged by many philosophers of science. But if they are attributing this to Karl Popper, they are misreading him and prioritising falsification over falsifiability. He championed the latter as the essential foundation for reliable knowledge, distinguishing useful hypotheses from assertions beyond controlled scrutiny. The best hypotheses are those that have survived rigorous testing for defects – so far.
Clive Coen
Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience, King’s College London
