Small Strivers

If there's anything to be relied on in British life, it is consistency. One need only compare the country's present position with the glories of 2010 to see how stable and predictable are the likely prospects for those infantine resources now entering into their heritage as customers of the youth training industry. Accordingly, the Government will soon be doling out careers advice to five-year-olds, introducing them to employers and thereby ensuring, from an early and impressionable age, an appropriate degree of resignation to whatever peril and pittance their benefactors may see fit to impose. It remains as yet unclear whether the Government intends to match its other achievements in Regency living standards by reducing or abolishing arbitrary Euro-wog prohibitions on child labour; certainly, while not every child can aspire to domestic service with the Duke of York, new opportunities beckon in such green industries as coal mining, chimney sweeping, agricultural labour and sewage processing.