Way of the World
Remember millennials? We used to read so much about them. All those articles depicting them as lazy, self-righteous young snowflakes. Yet these days we barely ever hear the word “millennials” at all. Whatever happened to them?
The answer is they grew up. Or at any rate grew older. They’re now well into their 30s. And in the meantime, something alarming has happened. Another new generation, Gen Z, has come along. And apparently, millennials are worried. Because Gen Z are even more woke than they were.
According to a newspaper this week, “Gen Z workers are terrifying their millennial bosses with their woke demands”. One millennial CEO said a Gen Z employee demanded that the company “support BLM”. Another millennial said a Gen Z recruit complained about working eight-hour shifts. And a third said she didn’t know how to handle texts from Gen Z saying they were “too anxious to work”.
For those of us in Gen X or above, it would be easy to make arch comments about how the tables have turned. But we should resist. All involved are simply fulfilling their traditional roles. Each new generation of young people rages against the old – then gets old itself, and grumbles about the young. The wartime generation grumbled that the Baby Boomers were lazy and self-righteous. The Boomers, in turn, have said the same about every generation since. It’s the natural order of things.
So I for one welcome the millennials to early middle age, and look forward to hearing more of their complaints about the youth of today.
“Gen Z don’t know they’re born. In our day we never had any of these newfangled iphone 13s. We only had iphone 5s.”
I whacked up alcohol duty on claret. As was widely noted at the time, what an extraordinary target for him to pick. Here was a Tory Chancellor, punishing Tory voters. He might as well have slapped a tax on labradors, bunting and watching Wimbledon.
This week, however, drinkers have suffered an even crueller blow. A new study says that, contrary to popular belief, drinking a glass of red wine a day has no health benefits. Personally, I wouldn’t mind this news so much if I could be sure it was reliable. The problem is, almost every week there seems to be some new study into the effects of red wine on our health – and they all seem to contradict each other. One week they say red wine is good for us. And the next they say it’s bad. Put it like this. In January a study found that drinking a glass of red wine a day could give you heart problems. Yet in April a study found that drinking a glass of red wine a day could help you avoid heart problems.
Take another example, from 2018. In April of that year a study found that red wine could decrease your life expectancy. Yet three months later a study found that red wine could increase your life expectancy.
Go back to 2008, and we find reports telling us that drinking wine is bad for your memory (October) and that drinking wine is good for your memory (December).
Elsewhere, we’ve been told that drinking red wine could lower blood pressure (August 2021), cut the risk of diabetes (April 2021), help you lose weight (August 2020), protect you from colds (July 2017) and even, somehow, boost your fitness (January 2017). But we’ve also been told it could increase the risk of having a stroke (April 2019), breast cancer (May 2017), throat cancer (February 2009), and just damage your health in general (July 2014). According to a report in The Sun
last summer, meanwhile, red wine could both boost your sex drive – and weaken it.
Thanks to these confusing studies, I’ve no idea whether I’m drinking too much, or too little. With each sip, I may be improving my health – or killing myself. It’s like playing Russian roulette, while drunk.
Perhaps we should simply take such studies with a large pinch of salt. Except they’ll say that’s bad for us, too.
Sir Peter Bottomley, the veteran Conservative MP, says we can avoid another lobbying scandal by paying MPS more money. I have an idea that is both simpler and cheaper. Don’t bother having any MPS at all. After all, what’s the point in having them, if they aren’t allowed to think for themselves? As demonstrated this week to such farcical effect, the whipping system means that most of the time MPS simply vote whichever way they’re told to, even when they disagree with it. Then they moan in private to journalists that they were “only following orders”.
In light of this, it’s hard to see why taxpayers should bother stumping up for MPS’ salaries, expenses, second homes and so on. Surely it would make more sense to elect farm animals, ideally sheep, which at the time of each Commons vote could be herded through the required lobby with minimal fuss. As well as being mindlessly obedient, sheep are capable of making all the appropriate noises during Prime Minister’s Questions, and are unlikely to seek additional earnings outside Parliament. The Chief Whip, Mark Spencer, used to be a farmer, so the arrangement would suit him down to the ground.
North Shropshire, the seat Owen Paterson is vacating, contains plenty of sheep. Let the Tories select one as their candidate for the by-election. Voters might well prefer it, and it would surely make the Prime Minister’s life much easier.