Cameron’s Rite On

“YOU do not know your arse from your elbow, you bastard,” shouts the youth to Conservative leader David Cameron.

When they’re not seeing which of them can hug a tree the tightest, our politicians are wooing the youth vote.

So here’s David Cameron at the Fairbridge centre in Brixton, London, where disadvantaged young people are given something to do in the warm and dry.

And here’s one of the teenagers telling Dave that he appreciates all his help and will, as sure as an elbow is an arse, vote for him just as soon as she gets the chance.

And that would be when the youth is 18. As the Times says, at 18 a Briton can vote. He can also serve on a jury, make a will, buy porn, buy fireworks, open a bank account and have a tattoo.

Remove the voting and the bank account from that list, and most teens have pretty much ticked off all those other rites by the time they’re 16. Some have even been given a gun by the Government and sent into battle.

Dave sees the problem. What this county needs is uniform coming of age.

As the Guardian hears Cameron say: “There’s a wide and confusing range of ages at which the law gives you the right to do certain things. You can get married at 16, but you can’t drive until you’re 17. You can buy a gun when you’re 17 but you can’t buy fireworks until you’re 18. There’s a strong case for clearing up some of the confusion and moving towards greater uniformity in age-related legislation."

It’s hard to argue with that. Sad it is that, as Dave says, “in our society, the closet thing to a rite of passage is going out and getting hammered on your 18th birthday.”

Better, argues Cameron, that there is a “formal and ceremonial” passage into adulthood. “Why not see if we can develop a common reference point, a nationally recognised ‘transition to adulthood’? It could become a recognised stamp of adulthood in Britain.”

Perhaps there could be a GCSE in it. And surely something as grand as coming of age necessitates the bestowing of a certificate.

But what to do? A drinking contest would be a popular idea. Or what about borrowing from the many societies that live in this land?

Perhaps a debutantes ball for everyone. Or an intensive period of fagging, followed by the bestowing of the golden slipper? Or what about circumcision?

Submit your ideas for the British Rite of Passage to editor@anorak.co.uk..

Posted: 31st, October 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink