Educating Davina
Yoof Question Time: making the best case yet for the voting age to be raised to 25

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that we are all destined to turn into our parents one day? Reminds me of when Johann Hari did an article in the New Statesman in 2001 about what it would be like when his generation got into power (hard drugs, sex and lots of it, and liberal democracy for all, apparently). And now…? Well, he’s virtually indistinguishable from older fellow-hacks on the Independent.

It was with this in mind that I watched the “young people” QT last night. Skinny jeans replaced pearls and twin sets, and polite clapping was occasionally supplemented by some keeeeraaazily outrEAGOUS clapping and hollering, but the basic opinions and outlook were the same as any other week on QT. Conclusion: the youth of today are crap. Shouldn’t they be out having sex and doing hard drugs (à la Johann) like they did in the old days, instead of slavishly repeating the views of their parents like automatons on national TV?

To begin.

We were at least spared the horrific scenes of last year, where Dimbers introduced the audience in his patented oh-gosh-I’m-a-bumbling-national-institution style. This year we were spared this grimness, with Dimbers merely telling us that the (extremely posh, it has to be said) youngsters were comprised merely of 14 to 22 year olds which, thinking about it, is the perfect age range for QT. Teenagers actually do know it all.

The panel contained Ed Miliband MP (recently promoted brother of David), Sayeeda Warsi, Davina McCall (she presents Big Brother ergo is down wid da kidz), Douglas Murray (a swivel eyed neo-con), and last but not least….Charlie Bell.

Charlie Bell, aged 18 and off to study medicine at Cambridge (naturally) had won a competition to get on the yoof panel last night. I rarely use this word, but I’m afraid I am going to have to now: Charlie is c*nt of epic proportions.

Davina – whose interactions with the general public have been limited in her career on the screen – began to get a taste of what she’d let herself in for when the first question (on Iraq. Who’d have thought, eh?) was answered by Douglas. It wasn’t just what he said, it was the fact that temple was throbbing, his left eye was bulging, and when he came to the words “Islamic terrorism” I swear he was a mention of Abu Hamza away from a full on coronary. Old Davina, no stranger to madman (presenter on BB remember) starts edging her chair away.

But is now her turn to respond! You can imagine the pre-QT scene in her dressing room:

Agent: Right darling, remember what you have to do?
Davina: Criticise the Government, agree with the audience, and if it gets hairy just say that Israel is to blame?
Agent: That’s my girl!

She gamely calls Douglas’ opinions “twaddle”, earning her a clap from the audience. This ain’t so bad, you can see her thinking.

Fruity Horatia: Crikey! Everybody knows poverty causes terrorism! This Government has bally well got blood on its hands.

Dimbers: Thank you Fruity Horatia. Jeremy, can I have a question from Jeremy please?

Jeremy Hockeysticks: The Government is definitely to blame.

Davina: [does impression of nodding dog. Keep to the plan, Davina old girl!]

[Audience whoops and cheers. Lord, they are young and keeeeraaaaazy!]

Ed Miliband looks like he’s dying inside, especially when he is asked to respond to a girl who wants to know why the “troops weren’t pulled out of Iraq before we went in.” And to think they say education is a piece of piss these days?

Davina: Saddam may have been a dictator but the trains ran on time! What’s a bit of genocide here and there when you have a nice stable society?

[wild hooting and clapping from the audience]

Fat Ron Weasley: Are all these concerts like Live Earth diluting the mighty political power wielded by Coldplay wearing wristbands with Bono in a field?

Dimbers: Who do you blame?

Fat Ron Weasley: THE GOVERNMENT!

[whoooooo! Go Ron, go Ron, go!]

Jessica: I’d like to ask Ed Miliband where he’s been the last five years when he should have been jolly well sorting out this climate change jobby. What what!

Disappointingly, Miliband doesn’t say “we were trying to alleviate poverty in Africa. You know, the cause you were wearing the wristbands and congregating in a field for last year.”

Then it gets interesting when we turn to (predictably) tuition fees. Hitherto Charlie the C*nt has merely been irritating me with his predictable, studenty populist, ill-thought out intellectually vacuous opinions but hey! I was a teenager once and I’m sure I was absolutely loathsome. But it is at this point that Davina McCall stops playing the part and begins to eye the audience and Charlie the C*nt with something almost approaching hatred.

Extremely posh girl: Why should I have to pay tuition fees?

Davina: It’s £3,000 out of £12,000 paid back as you can afford it. If you want more people to go to uni, then we have to accept that some of the people who benefit from it pay a little back. It’s not too bad, is it?

Charlie: Why should more people go to university? Why not bring back apprenticeships so the great unwashed can do those instead of cluttering up Cambridge’s leafy backs with their comprehensive school educations?

[hoots and cheers]

Tarquin: It jolly well degrades the meaning of a degree when every bozo can get into university!

Davina: [in a small voice] I never went to university.

Charlie: [ignoring her] I am off to university in the autumn and I am TERRIFIED about how I am going to pay for it.

I break off a rant to Beloved, pointing out that a boy with the name “Charles Bell” and his accent is not going to have a problem especially given that his salary when he graduates will be substantial and he’ll only have to pay off about £15 on his student loan per month, to watch Davina. She is staring at the overfed, privileged faces in the audience and listening appalled to the hoots and roars of sapproval at the proposal that the doors of the citadel of education and aspiration are slammed shut in the faces of those whom nature has not blessed with rich parents and public school education; it is almost like she is seeing them for the first time. Ah Davina. Political Damascene revelations. We’ve all had them.

A girl of sixteen says that she “doesn’t see anyone her own age in politics” (funny, that) and does Miliband support votes at sixteen.

Miliband (a recently promoted Cabinet Minister despite only two years in Parliament, former advisor, and confidant of Brown) says that he does indeed support lowering the voting age. Somebody page Philip Cowley!

For this augurs ill.