Ring out the old, ring in the new…

I am writing this on the shortest day of the year. The weather has been cold and dank in Salisbury, with mist hanging over the river. The temperature is falling – will we have a white Christmas? Tomorrow night we will be in the Cathedral for the Carol Service – and then Christmas will really begin. Mind you, our old-fashioned Norway Spruce has been up and decorated for a week even though Christmas does not technically begin until Christmas Eve. When I was a child in Salisbury Close we did not bring the tree inside the house until Christmas Eve and that was the day on which my father did his Christmas shopping!

Do you, like me, recall that it was often white at the turn of the year? Has climate change has seen an end to that? Alfred, Lord Tennyson caught the mood precisely:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Hogmanay or Winterval?

My first job was in Scotland and it came as a great shock that north of the border the New Year celebrations are more important than marking the birth of Christ. At least there was no nonsense about calling it Winterval. And those who allege we cause offence to other religions by calling it ‘Christmas’ should understand that Muslims and others are in fact more likely to pity us. How can we hope to understand their religion if we deny our own?  

Commercialisation may be as rampant as ever but I put that down to increased spending power and the need to pause the speed and stress of modern living. For those who will open their hearts and minds, Christmas is still about the birth of a child who changed the world.

This is my first Christmas as a grandfather – and that has changed everything! Perhaps for the first time since our kids were opening their Advent Calendars and hanging up their stockings, I have been thinking about life from a child’s point of view. That is something we should all do more often.

Seen and not heard?

Most of the social and economic policies that govern our lives are made by men (and too few women) who are over 40. Those policies are then administered by adults without any consultation or discussion with children and young people. ‘Children should be seen and not heard’, you will say. And I suggest that is precisely the problem we must start to put right. We can either put our heads in the sand and matters will deteriorate or we start building a new future.

The respect agenda…

Why has the Government started talking about ‘respect’ – meaning lack of it by the young? Why do we suffer so much from ‘anti-social behaviour’? Is it just a coincidence that we have developed a  binge-drinking culture which makes our town and village centres so unattractive on Saturday nights – and also an explosion in sexually transmitted diseases in young people? The media and most adults seem to find it easy to blame kids when things go wrong. Please examine your conscience and ask yourself when you last had a meaningful conversation with young people about the things that matter to them as well as the things that matter to you.

Wiltshire County Council, which besides being the education authority also runs services for young people, has reached for the internet to provide information about bullying, drug and alcohol misuse, domestic violence and other issues. The site is young-person friendly and is written in language not entirely familiar to those of us over thirty! I recommend you check out www.slipperyfish.org.uk.

Adults who find teenagers difficult to live with are nothing new. Ancient Greek literature was full of it. What has changed since I was a child in Salisbury is the affluence of a lot of children and the relentless pressure they are under – everything from sex to money to school assessments to public exams and employment. Parents find it hard enough to listen and to understand. Other adults rarely try – especially politicians. Yet in Salisbury District, 22% of the population is under 18 and only 18% are over 65 years old.

It’s time to listen.

If I was a parent over again, I believe the most precious gift I could give my children would be my time. As a politician voting on new laws in 2006 my New Year Resolution will be to think of the impact of new policy on children. I will also talk to more children and young people – carefully, of course, in this politically correct country.

I know of only one man who has the statutory right to talk to any child without fear of repercussions – and that is the Children’s Commissioner. We may be mad on animals, but we are the last country in Europe to establish a Commissioner whose role is to give a national voice to all children and young people, especially the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. He is independent of Government and it is his job to promote awareness of the views and interests of children. He will also assess all new government policies for their impact on children.

Robert Key MP
Salisbury, 21st December 2005