A CORRESPONDENT to this newspaper observed the other day that "young people have always believed that the 'status quo' and the 'Establishment' need drastic change if the world is to become a fairer and happier place''.

Very true. But it's my experience, at 63, that the older one gets, the more strongly one feels that the status quo and the Establishment need upending.

Example 1. Communities across North Yorkshire, from Teesside to York, have been battling for ten years against a monstrous new line of giant pylons. Though they have presented a well-argued case they have finally lost - as it was always inevitable they would.

A similar defeat has been inflicted on the campaigners against the new terminal at Heathrow. The big battalions virtually always win. Nevertheless, the Blair Government - Labour, of the people, remember - believes they don't win fast enough. To be unveiled this month, a shake-up of planning law is expected to reduce the public's, and indeed the local authorities', opportunity to challenge major developments. Local input will be confined to cosmetics such as road access and landscaping.

Example 2. Blinded in one eye by an air gun pellet, 15-year-old Nicola Dustin, of Gateshead, is campaigning for the licensing of air guns. If a top royal, especially a royal child, was merely struck by an air gun pellet, let alone at the cost of an eye, tight controls would be rushed through Parliament within days.

Example 3. Instances of patients being left on trollies, shunted around the country for a hosptial bed, and dying while on waiting lists or of medical negligence are now almost commonplace. But there are people, of whom the Queen Mother is perhaps the supreme example, who can be sure that any malady will be spotted at the earliest moment, with the best treatment immediately available, and no chance of dying through a botch up. And, while Labour at least shows signs of wanting to equalise matters up as much as possible, the Tories are nursing (no pun intended) a queue-jumping voucher scheme.

Example 4. Many people who have served companies diligently for years are now discovering that their pensions will not yield anything like what they were led to believe. But top bosses leave with millions, often after only a short time with the company, and even when they have fouled up. The Government now endorses this to such an extent that it has just paid £494,000 to the former head of Sport England, deeply involved in the Wembley Stadium/Pickett's Lock fiasco, who quit his £80,000-a-year post voluntarily.

Example 5. The Marchioness disaster. 51 dead. Ah, but not a big name among 'em. So - six years to an inquest, 11 to a public inquiry. Matters still rumbling on. Small people have to fight every inch of the way for justice.

Yes, the status quo and the Establishment need drastic change. But one's increasing impatience for this with age is accompanied by the dull realisation that it is unlikely to happen. Good grief, this Government is even considering abolishing the jury system, which is the most hands-on involvement of the rank-and-file in our entire civil system.

But good luck to the young. The failure of my generation to achieve that "fairer, happier world'' - or in this context "society" - is absolute.

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