People from my background aren’t supposed to get into the Oval Office. The system isn’t designed for it to happen naturally.This country isn’t the land of opportunity we’d like it to be, and you are kidding yourself if you think it is.
It never has been, and if you look at the plight of the ‘lost generation’ of Britain’s youth, there’s not much chance it ever will be. Not with the way our educational and political regimes are run.
I’m so glad Alan Milburn has finally realised it.
If only he’d realised Britain’s employment and social mobility framework was a scandal back when he was in Tony Blair’s government, they might have done something about it...Chatting with President Trump in the White House like I did last year, hoping he understood my northern English accent, certainly didn’t seem likely to happen 30 years ago. You should have seen the state of me then.
One morning, two years into a degree at Hull University, I looked into the mirror, hungover, a stone and a half heavier than I am now, trying to get my mop of hair into some sort of working order before heading half-heartedly to my ‘punishing’ two hours of afternoon lectures.
After the ‘stress’ of nearly 120 minutes of solid not paying attention to the lecturers, it was back to the pub for a few hours to relax.
One particularly memorable night, I followed that by knocking off a 12-inch-deep pan pizza at 9pm then heading back to the pub.
Then, the hunger pangs kicked in at 2 am, and I finished off the night with a Special burger (in Hull, at that time, ‘special’ meant it came with a fried egg in the bun too) and chips.
Let’s just say the ‘2:2’ lower second-class degree I ended up with was a testament to how I’d calibrated the work-play balance during my three years of studies.
That degree in Economic and Social History didn’t really qualify me for anything too practical.
I subsequently found that out every couple of weeks when I walked the four-mile round trip into Durham City and back to check the boards in the Job Centre and sign on for Jobseeker’s Allowance.
My latter time in Job Club, writing job application letters and CVs with redundant, middle-aged miners on a shared word processor (no laptops then…) was a particular eye-opener.
But it turned out I was lucky. I was lucky that I was growing up at a time when you could leave Comprehensive school, head to university for free, live on £35 a week, and not leave with too much debt.
I was lucky that having a degree on my CV was the prerequisite to opening the door to a six-month course in journalism that set me on course for my meeting with President Trump.
Without that degree, I wouldn’t have got on the course. A year later, I had my first job in news – as a news agency reporter in Leeds. Next thing I knew, I was banging on the door of a man for The Sun who’d been ordered by a judge to stay at his mother’s under the terms of an Asbo, but she couldn’t stand him, and he was secretly living in the shed.
In a couple of years, I’d fluked my way into Fleet Street with the Daily Star – they asked me in for a day’s shift to check if I “had two heads or not” and I never left the same newspaper group for 20 odd years.
In that time, I saw the world, met Britney Spears, went to the Queen Mother’s funeral, and avoided newspaper redundancy programmes successfully until 2021, when I joined GB News.
It hasn’t always been plain sailing, but the roller-coaster career in journalism that led all the way to a meeting with the world’s most famous man was thanks in a big part to that ropey degree.
But 1.25 million young men and women – the total number Mr Milburn says will soon be not in education, employment and training (NEET) aren’t as lucky.
I fluked my way to the Oval Office. Today's working-class kids won't even get that chance
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And it’s getting harder to find a break by the day. Now, an educational background like mine doesn’t get them even up the front path to start knocking, let alone through the door.
Life’s a scrap. Life’s not fair. It always has been. But it’s scrappier and more unfair than it’s ever been, and that’s before A.I. does its worst to what’s left of the job market.
When I was a newspaper editor, I ran a Covid-era campaign called Generation Lockdown demanding future governments look after the youngsters who’d sacrificed so much during the pandemic.
Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to come good for “Generation Lockdown” and thanked them for “shouldering the burden” of Covid.
He added: "I am determined that their prospects should not be damaged by everything they have been through. They have shouldered this burden willingly and with great resilience – and they deserve the thanks of the nation.”
Look at that generation now. They’re still shouldering the burden of Covid’s legacy and needing a lot more than the thanks of the nation to see them through to retirement.
But who’s going to fix things? We are told the 'King of the North’ is going to save them. Fat chance. Kids from ordinary, working-class backgrounds like mine deserve a fair crack at a wild career that leads to a mad day in the White House. Our politicians say they’ve woken up and claim they care. Let’s just see if they actually do.