14/02/07 - loveless day to be British

Its every card company's favourite day. That seems to have said all that needs to be said about Valentine's day.

As a huge Lost fan I have to mention that I thoroughly enjoyed its return and my faith in it is now restored, 'Not In Portland' was a brilliant episode. I watched it at 1am in the dark and Room 23 really freaked me out! My main (irrational?) fear is of torture, I don't particularly feel safe in our society anymore. I would crack straight away to torture even though it probably wouldn't help me, I'm not physically or mentally strong enough. The chances of me ever having information of much use is of course slim.

In reality the period since World War 2 has been one of relative peace, yes we have had various 'wars', Vietnam and the Cold War being the predominant ones, but in reality not all that much has really happened and most people have felt relatively safe. But now things are changing. The Gulf War has reignited ever since 9/11 (or 11/9 as we would prefer to call it) and nuclear weapons are a key issue once again. Part of the problem is that while America feels the need to defend itself it tends to be fairly myopic as it goes about it. America sees one threat and tends to forget about others, or at least not do anything meaningful about them. It has been noticable how it has hopped between Iran and North Korea as each appears to become more of a threat than the other. Whilst this is happening Russia has been stocking up on weapons again, led by Vladimir Putin who feels that Russia once again deserves to be a major power. If it truly decided to it would be a better stance than it once was too. In the 1930s Britain feared Communism, now Britain can fear Russia for stockpiling weapons and a monopolistic position in the market on European energy production.

I would be lying if I said I felt that I was going to get kidnapped, tortured and beheaded when I wake up later this morning, the truth is that it probably will not happen, although a possibility is there. However, I do feel that the possibility is becoming more real and that there is a fair chance of circumstances worsening before they improve. In the case of nuclear weapons another Cold War scenario would probably actually be for the best, then each country was too afraid to use its expertise for fear of retaliation, and it would not be a terrible thing if we end up in the same situation.

According to a report compiled by Unicef Britain is the worst of 21 developed countries to live in for a child. Brilliant news! As a child brought up in Britain and feeling that they had a very good upbringing I'm wondering how wonderful it would have been in the 20 other countries (apparently Denmark is the best, mass exodus anyone?)

Unfortunately, like most other reports this one should be taken with a meal full of salt. The categories and how they are measured give a fairly good idea of how it is not the most enlightening report in reality. There were 6 categories, these were:
- material wellbeing;
- health and safety;
- educational wellbeing,
- family and peer relationships,
- behaviours and risks;
- the young people's own perceptions of their wellbeing.

Now, the first category is the best example of where this report falls down. Material wellbeing was looked at as the proportion of children in relative poverty, which in the UK is 15%. This is a horrible sounding figure, 3 in 20 children in poverty scream the headlines, but in reality relative poverty is a lot more complicated than that. It has nothing to do with income or your actual welfare, just how you fare compared to other people. Now, if you live in a country with very high levels of welfare, you could be in relative poverty and still be doing better than the average person in your neighbouring country. To be honest I doubt the children of many African countries would be too perturbed by the lives of some of our children living in relative poverty.

If we take family and peer relationships then we find that this was measured based on what children reported. Now, once again we see the problem with this report is that it is very subjective, you can't ask children in 21 different countries how their relationships with their families are because it is simply an opinion, and as soon as opinions come into reports like this they lose a lot of their usefulness, as important as they are. Britain is fairly well known for being a country that likes to complain, so how can we say that the same relationship that is complained about by British kids is not considered brilliant by Swedish children? Another part of this section gave the figure "Not much more than 40% of the UK's 11, 13 and 15-year-olds find their peers 'kind and helpful'". Now, how exactly are 11 year old peers really expected to be kind and helpful? When you were 13, would you really have described your friends as 'kind and helpful'? I doubt it, I know I wouldn't have, even though in reality they actually were!

Perceptions of wellbeing is the most obviously flawed category. Not only does it lower a survey to the level of 'what do you think of your life?' but it also misses a point. This is the future generation, who in 10 years time will be able to truly make a difference. Now if they think that things should be better then they might put some effort into improving it, whereas if they thought everything was great they would have no motivation to bring about a change. Considering everything brilliant is not necessarily the great thing that it is thought to be by this survey.

Having said all this there are serious points to be raised. Britain is one of the worst countries for subjecting children to smoking, drugs and unsafe sex. How to deal with this is a whole different argument, but needless to say it is not a positive thing and it worries me deeply.