Anyone for Tennis?

When I was growing up, in another time, I was brought up to see my elders as being wise people, and experience taught me that this was true. Whether it was a leader of the country or president of the local tennis club, police chiefs, politicians, business leaders, newspaper editors and senior reporters, these were people with gravitas, with knowledge, with a desire to do the right thing based on the wisdom acquired in a lifetime and a careful analysis of the real world around them.

So where the hell did they all go?

When I listened to Tony Blair and George Bush talk about Lebanon last week I was listening to people who had less knowledge of the politics and history of the Middle East than my 5 year old grandson. And people who were nevertheless going to impose their uninformed, unanalysed thoughts on the rest of the world. Business leaders export jobs to low wage countries while screwing little old ladies by raising electricity charges. Police demand zero tolerance policies, more jail cells, and beat up people of other ethnic groups; newspaper editors write editorials with no relation to reality; reporters tell narratives, not facts, and reproduce press releases without investigation. And politicians? Politicians support global warming and object to the warmth of burning flags; support the killing of thousands of people in Iraq while opposing stem cell research; cynically tack a further tax cut for Paris Hilton on to a bill for increasing the minimum wage.

I want the adults to come back. Wherever you have gone, come back and take charge again will you. The tennis club is still being run ok but nothing else is.