My daughter will be 24 when her about-to-be-renewed passport next runs out. What, we wondered together, will have changed in 10 years. We agreed that Trump, May and Boris will be history as will post offices and, she tells me, social media (’that generation will have moved on’). Graphene will apparently have transformed technology (no idea, parents etc), noone will watch TV-as-we-know-it nor be able to buy a petrol car; and robots will (or will have to) replace foreign workers. Doubt, though, that there’ll be fewer potholes or shorter queues in A&E.
Making a difference?
The ’70s were for my coming-of-age time, as they were for Stuart Maconie, author of ‘The Nanny State Made Me’. It’s when I took my 0 and A Levels, went to uni and started my first job. My view of the decade will always be rose-tinted, I’ll remember the music, discos, student grants (wouldn’t have known what a tuition fee was) and monthly inflationary pay rises negotiated by unions of which I was not a member. The strikes, high taxes and IRA bombs were background noise to me and, yes, I was the first in my family to go to university and, yes, despite everything, felt more secure with a nanny state in charge than at any time since. I’d happily pay more tax to give my kids and grandkids the same.
