Thursday 19th January

Not literally of course; a child’s smile, a little kindness and many other ordinary things are absolutely good.  But, strangely almost everything which begins by being such a good idea ends up either going wrong or having unintended consequences.

Harold Wilson, on resigning in 1977 I think, was asked what he thought the greatest danger for ordinary people would be in the future.  He replied “Affluence”, which at the time seemed a strange answer, but what he was observing was the thanklessness of people.  The two Labour Governments of 1945 and 1964 had achieved so much for ordinary working people, dragging them out of abject poverty, raising living standards massively and improving life chances for millions.  And what has happened to all those who did well and maybe bought their own houses; they have largely turned their backs on fellow strugglers.  Things would get much worse of course after Thatcher and again now, where it is dog eat dog and the devil take the hindmost.

And two other great “liberating” decisions have had unexpected consequences too.  Back in the Fifties Marriage literally meant forever, couples wouldn’t have dreamed of splitting up; you made your bed and you would just have to lie in it.  Of course, there were an awful lot of unhappy marriages, and the relaxing of the Divorce laws and the subsequent acceptance by Society that Divorce was okay meant that many of those unhappy people were released from bad marriages.  But now Divorce is so commonplace that even when young children are involved it is often the first rather than the last resort.  And this from a twice divorced man too; I almost regret the fact that Divorce was such an easy option.

The Pill which was a great liberation for women soon became a pressure for young women to have sex maybe sooner than they wanted to.  And it took away from men the responsibility for precautions.  In the Seventies you almost assumed that every young woman was on the Pill, and if not why not.

Almost every Act of Parliament has unexpected consequences and pretty soon gets amended, often time and time again.  Almost every new Government comes in promising to reform some legislation recently passed.  Maybe we are just hopeless at actually framing legislation, or is it that every decision seen as good has a habit of turning out badly?

Anyway…not much we can do about it except keep smiling.