Millennials

Pokémon Go makes me wonder about Generation Y, which will surely be remembered as one of the most childish collectives of all time. I am part of this contingent of people born in the 1980s and 1990s - the offspring of the baby boomers - characterised as a digitally-savvy cohort, among other things. We have been an incredibly lucky lot, thrust into a technological renaissance of sorts - where computing breakthroughs take place all the time. But in spite of this evolution, young people have slowed down. We have become self-indulgent, silly and reluctant to grow up. We are the Peter Pan Generation. At least, that’s what the mobile game Pokémon Go suggests to me, which invites people to trawl the streets with their phones for imaginary characters.

A year or so ago, I inherited a cardboard box filled with plants. It was an offshoot from an enormous collection that belonged to a young botanist from Stockwell. He was about to be turfed out of the derelict building he lived in and hundreds of plants were being spread across London. I offered to rehome a few. My only outdoor space is a window box, so most of the plants had to face life indoors. Some were happy; others withered. I enjoyed having them, though, so I replaced the dead and began a collection. My one-bed flat now contains more than 20 plants. The window box is bursting with herbs — parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. I’ve also added some mint. More knowledgeable friends tell me that it has aggressive roots and will soon turn into a despotic ruler.

How clean are you? I ask not as a mother confessor. I’m not interested in the state of your soul. What I want to know is: how clean is your sock drawer? Your fridge? Your gut? These are the pressing questions of the new cult of clean. Its apostles urge us to divest ourselves of worldly possessions, to renounce ‘dirty’ food and alcohol and to dress in monkish grey or bleached white. Our sins are these: we have bought too much tat, eaten to filthy excess and stuffed our wardrobes with cheap, disposable rubbish. The clean cultist says no more. Everything must go. The most high and holy of the clean cultists is Marie Kondo, Japanese author of The Life-changing Magic of Tidying.

Jerry Seinfeld’s takedown of the political correctness of today’s youth should give us all pause for thought. In an interview on US radio, the sitcom and stand-up star said that college campuses have become a no-go area for comedians. ‘I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, “Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC”' he said, before launching into a story about the time his 14-year-old daughter accused his wife of being ‘sexist’ for suggesting that she may soon want to start seeing boys. ‘They just want to use these words. That’s racist. That’s sexist. That’s prejudice. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

If I had a penny for every time a politician or a journalist insinuated that of all the issues facing Britain in the 21st century, public transport was the thing that affected my life the most, I would own a bus company. If I had a penny for the amount of times someone asked how angry I was about Clegg and tuition fee rises, I would have no student debt. But this is the political climate we currently live in. Modern politicians have well and truly shafted young people, and not just through policy changes or obvious attempts to bribe their older, greyer core vote. I'm talking about Westminster’s desire to constantly label all young people the same.

Is it fair to describe today’s youth as the ‘gilded generation’? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, James Delingpole discusses this week’s Spectator cover feature with The Economist’s Daniel Knowles. With rising house prices, increasing levels of debts and a highly competitive jobs market, is the notion that the young have never had it so good a myth? Were things better for young people in the 1970s? And will today’s young generation witness a fall in living standards, compared to their elders? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also look forward to the general election, which is exactly one year today.

I am taken to task by the Guardian’s Ally Fogg for my Telegraph column on the growing underachievement of boys. It’s a thoughtful and spunky piece, which I thought worth replying to here. The phenomenon of male underperformance causes much angst on the left, demanding a choice between feminism and equality. For anyone born after Perry Como was in the charts, women are no longer underperforming. When law and medicine graduates are 60pc female, and girls a third more likely to apply to university than boys, we’re not looking at equality. We're looking at a new inequality being incubated, because male horizons are narrowing. The notions of feminism and equality are becoming detached, which is horribly disorientating for some on the left. So what to do?