Chris Hanlon worries that he is slowly morphing into Margaret Thatcher.
“I WAS so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
So said Bob Dylan, as poetically as ever, about how instead of sliding into a life of political apathy and blinkered obsession with mortgage repayments he railed more than ever as he got older against political injustice.
I wish I could say I was the same as my idol. In my mid-twenties I can already feel the bitter realities of life chipping away at my once idealistic politics and myself slipping into pathetic political apathy.
I, like most students, was a bit of a lefty in my student days. However, although my politics were avowedly left-leaning and still are to a great extent, please don’t confuse me with those ubiquitous beret-wearing, Che Guevara T-shirt and Arab scarf sporting pretentious twats whose lawyer daddy was paying their rent. How painful was it listening to some
ill-informed poser spout ridiculous self-contradictory nonsense about Marxism and multi-national corporations killing the planet when they shopped in sainsbury and Gap?
For all its obvious failings, no one seems to have yet thought of – or at least put into practice – a more workable system than free-market capitalism. When you step out into the real world you quickly learn that no company is all cuddly and that all money is to some extent dirty.
If you really don’t like capitalism you have to opt out of the system completely to avoid becoming a hypocrite – and North Korea doesn’t rank highly on too many people’s must-see destinations.
My changing views on one particular political hot potato has brought this to my attention – Immigration. I used to be of the view when I read transparently scare-mongering headlines in The Sun or The Daily Mail about immigrants ‘flooding’ in and nicking our jobs that it was reactionary nonsense and that Britain was unquestionably enriched by being a multi-cultural country.
I do still believe that, look at a city like Sydney, surely no one can say that despite the recent racial tensions at places like Cronulla that Sydney isn’t a better and more vibrant city for its kaleidoscope of cultures.
However, where my politics have changed is that I now do think that there is a tipping point where there can be too much immigration.
Look at how hard it is to get residency in Austrlia. You need a degree, to be highly-skilled in an area of a distinct shortage have a job offer or be married or related to a resident. In Britain, although I don’t profess to be learned on the matter, things don’t seem to be quite as stringent and Britain is already vastly overpopulated compared to Australia.
My leftie idealism, the naive black and white of my youth, has now been tempered with the realisation that everything is shades of grey. Maybe I’m just not as caring as old Bob D, or maybe it’s just harder to write a song about there not being any easy answers.
Chris
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