Youth at the poll

THE TRESS DONALD McLACHLAN

I was surprised when I saw the main story on the front page of the Daily Mail on Monday: `Teenagers Tell: Why We Want to Quit Britain: A remarkable series of interviews by National Opinion Polls.' For the Mail is very much a newspaper and the polling of youth, whatever results it gives, is not news. Perhaps the explanation was to be found in the Daily Mirror's simultaneous feature 'The Cool Four Million' spreading across the middle page as several times trailed in the previous week as a revelation of what teenagers were thinking. But polls of this kind take too long for the Mail's series to have been a simple reaction to the Mirror's announcement. Then there was the further coincidence of the Daily Sketch offering On the same day £100 to '3,290,000 fresh young minds' for the best description in 200 words of 'what you think would make Britain better.' They were invited at the same time to say whether or not they think they should have the vote at eighteen.

The editor of the Daily Sketch told me he had been wondering for some time how to deal with the Latey report on lowering the age of responsibility, and was not really influenced by the Mirror's plan which I am told goes back some months and is directly connected with. the `gorgeous girls' series which recently ended. So it is chance that they chose a period of national disillusionment and disappointment to tape record 1,000 foolscap pages of adolescent views and get author Keith Waterhouse, 'who has an intuitive insight into the minds of the young,' to 'assess and tabulate the results.' It is not so long ago that the same newspaper was running a series of articles of real distinction by Mr John Pilger showing the individualism and idealism of youngsters offering service at home and abroad. I cannot believe that those people would have recognised themselves in this piece of Waterhousian prose : 'Beards are back in fashion. But the Cool Four Million do not see themselves as latter-day Francis Drakes. The Golden Hind would be a good name for a group.' Nor, I fancy, would they particularly like this corny specimen from Tuesday's article : 'Into the rich tapestry of British tradition we may now weave the bulldog quality of maiiana.

Let me not mislead you : some serious opinion has emerged from the tapes but the Mirror has been stressing the irreverence, the detachment, the readiness to make silly remarks like 'I have an impression of toilet seats lined with ermine' or 'pretty soon the crowds should be bigger for John Lennon than for the Queen.' Not for the first time British 'youth' is being sensationalised, collectivised and presented as one huge trend. I am surprised that no one said either to the Mail's National Opinion Polls or to

the Mirror's recording machines 'For God's sake let us alone and let me be me.'

, Such a protest is not inconceivable even in `the year of the micro-skirt,' for the Mail's investigation showed 68 per cent of the teenager sample believing in God and only 22 per cent rejecting belief. Conspicuously, but not sur- prisingly; the Mail's sample poll brings support for its own conservatism (just as the Mirror's brings backing for its own radicalism) and the vote for bringing back hanging was overwhelm- ing. Indeed, this is the first measure that the majority would carry out if they became Prime Minister. Next would be 'legal majority at eighteen,' then the restoration of free radio, and then more liberal driving laws. Yet when they were asked about voting at eighteen, only 59 per cent were in favour and 36 per cent not. The Mirror put the_same point : 'A Government fascinated by the gimmick of votes at eighteen may also be fascinated—and possibly relieved— to hear that a great number of people of that age do not particularly want it.'

The competition in the Daily Sketch should throw some light on this matter. Another ques- tion remains to be asked, if not by the young then by their parents. Why do newspapers do this to teenagers? I mean, why treat them as the vehicle for wheeling in sex, drugs, frivolity, irresponsibility and the other elements of what Fleet Street—or most of it—likes to call 'human interest'? Does it not occur to editors, when they stage these campaigns or surveys, that much of what they, are printing is echoes of their own work, reflections of their own style, imitations of the kind of idea and phrase that is born of the fevered effort to be bright and sell a newspaper? I am depressed by the evi- dence in these series that youngsters talk—or are made to talk—in the clichés of journalism.

Unless someone stops to think, the next move will be to explore and, expose, the world of the pre-adolescent. Between, say, eight and thirteen there is everything there: the first intimations of sex, rebellion, pocket money, problems, crime, critical attitude to parents—and. to

FLEET ST INTELLIGENCE

`To devalue the money you hold in trust for others is to cheat them . . . The Government must not be seen as a defaulter. There are many arguments against devaluation, but few more convincing.'—Leading article, 'Guardian,' 9 November.

'To make a moral issue of devaluation . . . is incongruous.'—Leading article, 'Guardian,' 27 November.

`The vast mass of Left MPS are convinced that the anti-Wilson factions in the party are com- bining with forces in the City and "Big Busi- ness," Tory newspapers and the Tory propa- ganda machine to discredit Mr Wilson and get Mr Callaghan installed as the new Prime Minister.'—James Margach, 'Sunday Times,' 26 November, page one.

`Mr Wilson . . . has his party united behind him once again.'—lames Margach, 'Sunday Times,' 26November, page four.

`Mr McNamara is known to be interested in the problems of the developing countries, particu- larly, for the moment, of course, the countries of South-East Asia.'—lohn Graham, in his scoop on the us Defence Secretary's nomination as next President of the World Bank, 'Financial Times,' 27 November. politics. They are important, these little children, for they are the readers of the future; and in only a few years they will be spenders too. Why should not their views, their attitudes be given publicity? Let us get down to the grass roots. Monday's Mail says 'nearly half the young people of this country would like to emigrate.' `Why the hell,' they say, 'should we have any pride in Britain? Why should we have any loyalty?' According to Waterhouse (Billy Liar) `they viewed the other inhabitants of these islands with tolerance, sympathy and compas- sion. But there is no contact. They are com- pletely detached.' Obviously we have been wasting our time educating them, bringing them up: they could have emigrated years ago if the press had only told us what they were thinking.

I must say that two things strike me as .odd about the Sunday Times contempt of court

case: that a major risk of offence should not have been brought to the editor's notice (who would leave this to a features editor?) before the paper went to press; and that the editor, if he was on duty, should not have read all his paper at any rate by the time uf the second edition. This is not easy for a daily editor to do— although it can be, and was in my time done, well enough on the Daily Telegraph to avoid this kind of mistake—although we all make them where libel is concerned. I am also puzzled by the decision to let the section editor take the blame in court. When I was editing the Sunday Telegraph I would not have dreamt of letting my section editor take the rap for a mistake of this kind.