Justice for Damilola?

Reading the daily papers makes for a grim morning experience. There are endless, gruesome stories about mobs and gangs attacking young people and others. Often there's Facebook campaigns, where a gang of 20 converges on their 'victim' slicing him to death, or hacking or burning or attacking. It's as if we have created a feral subculture, an underclass of disaffected, disenfranchised youth, who can only define themselves by stamping on someone's head, knifing their guts or slashing them to pieces. The youth that shouted 'I've done him' when he killed an 'innocent' 15 year old last weekend, just underlines the point. Since the shocking days of Damilola Taylor, left to bleed to death in a stairwell on the way back from school, and beyond, the main badge of macho masculinity and kidulthood has become the ability and willingness to kill and maim. Girls are also drawn into this dark world of 'proving' what 'balls' they have, which started with 'happy slapping' and now is symbolised in sickening, violent crime. No longer genteel kleptomania is enough to prove your worth - you have to kick and stamp a gay man's head flat in Trafalgar Square to show how tough you are. Violence breeds violence, and fear, we know. With the slashing government will come increasing unrest, disenfranchisement and disgruntlement. It will take a great deal of future investment to turn things around once young people who would have gone to university or spent useful lives, simply end up on the street or worse. Still, the news today about Damilola Taylor's possible murderers being retrialed does give a glimmer of hope. Justice may be slow...but maybe it will now finally be done.

New Year Resolutions Solutions

This can be a very bleak time of year when we haven't quite shrugged off the chills and ills of winter to head for the daffodilly glories of Spring...and it's a time when it's hard to sustain the New Year resolutions which were made, in haste and desperation, after the overindulgence of the Christmas period.

The most important thing is to be not only realistic, but also kind to yourself. Cut yourself some slack. If you were trying to quit smoking, go dry for a month, lose weight, remember it takes time. Set yourself realistic daily deadlines, and when you meet them, congratulate yourself. The biggest mistake people make is to try to do everything all at once. It can be a kind of self-sabotage to set too many unrealistic goals. Take your time, focus on one thing, and then go for it.

I think the basic tools of CBT (see my new book, Change Your Life with CBT: How cognitive behavioural therapy can transform your life (Pearsons) can be excellent in helping you set goals and meet them, especially if you are feeling grim at this time of year. Money, diet, health, weight, jobs, redundancy, all of this can lead to sleepless nights and a sense of helplessness, if you are trying to sort things out.

Take one issue: focus on it. Set down three realistic goals. Note the thoughts and feelings that float up in your mind about how you feel about your goals. Note them down. How hard would it be to achieve your goal? Estimate it - 90% maybe? Then take one step in the right direction of meeting your goals. You will be moving forward, almost without realising it. Measure how hard it really was - maybe on 45% - far less than you estimated. So you can do it after all. Give yourself a pat on the back, metaphorically speaking, once you've achieved even the smallest goal.

You're on your way, and still on track.

And it's getting lighter every day...

STUDENTS: A FUTURE LIFE OF DEBT

For Nick Clegg and David Cameron it seems relatively easy to contemplate educational debt. After all they both went to fee paying private schools, with solid families and wealth behind them, coming from the upper echelons of our society. Their legacy on student debt will be similar to Tony Blair's on Iraq - it will be an act which the public will neither forgive nor forget. Pushing fees up to £9k or £12k a year, and beyond, leaving students with £40k or £60k debt on leaving university, might be acceptable for the owning classes, but for the 'ordinary' people of the UK, it is totally unacceptable.

Many years ago I worked for the National Union Students and actually was on a committee putting forward 'The Case Against Student Loans'. Sadly, the Labour Party started the slippery slide, which is now an avalanche. It is not only the principle of education being a right, which is at stake here, but also the issue of who precisely will be able to pay. If, as in the oft quoted American situation, students pay a premium for education, they start saving from birth (or at least their upwardly mobile parents do). Here, parents will have had no time to prepare for this change, which will cause enormous heartache and headaches for parents of all classes and backgrounds throughout these islands.

I have worked in education for over twenty five years now, most recently at Middlesex University, and have seen, first hand, how impoverished students are now. They struggle to make ends meet, they do two or three part time jobs, they hardly have time or attention to study. How can raising fees improve these students' life chances?

I believe the imposition of these impossibly high student fees will be the nail in the coalition's coffin. It will be the Con-Dem's Iraq. The public will neither accept nor forgive this rise. It is like Thatcher's Poll Tax debacle, something which is inherently unfair and against which the public will revolt.

Ironically, the credit crunch and recession was down to many of us getting into unthinking debt. We all know the banks lured many into mortgages, overdrafts and loans which were impossible to sustain. It was mythical money. Now, the government is going to lure students into taking on huge mountains of debt, for decades. The Government is endorsing taking on debt which cannot easily be paid back - how can this be a good lesson for students about managing their money wisely?

Hopefully, parents, other workers, any concerned individuals, will join with students and young people to protest against these impossible fee rises. An educated nation is a civilised nation. An uneducated nation in debt, leads us to very dark places indeed.

Gillian McKeith and Kate Middleton - why not get some CBT

My new book, Change Your Life with CBT (Pearsons, £10.99) should be shipped straight out to the jungle. TV nutrition guru Gillian McKeith has been shrieking, fainting and screaming with fear for the past few days, as her phobia of all things creepy crawly has terrified her completely. Indeed, and indeed weirdly, Gillian apparently had not thought to watch the show beforehand, so had (apparently) no idea contestants had to munch on cockroaches or endure spiders and bugs. How could she not? Whatever, she could well have armed herself with a range of wonderful ways of dealing with the panic, when it strikes. All she had to do was do a short course of CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - which would have helped her control the urge to panic. After all, looked at logically, the contestants are not actually in danger. Yes, wading through fish guts or pawing through ants' nests, or having rats crawling over your face or trying to eat wiggling worms (live ones) is foul for anyone, especially a vegan like Gillian. But it is possible to learn to control her mind, by working out that her worst fears are not actually going to come about. After all, she can cry out 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here' any time and she'll be saved. The problem with panic, phobias and all overriding fears, is that the fear becomes worse than the thing feared, itself. It is possible to calm down, breathe and cope with something fearful - but it does take awareness, preparation, and an ability to be more rational in the situation. Luckily, CBT can teach this, fairly easily - if you want to learn.

Similarly, Kate (Catherine now) Middleton, has been thrown to the media wolves this week and her life will now be gobbled up in the media machine. She acknowledged - albeit with poise - that she was scared, and 'daunted' not only by the task of joining the royal 'firm' but also by the whole process of having a royal wedding. She admitted several times to feeling fearful, or scared, and therein lies her strength. She felt her fear and did it anyway, which is what learning to conquer your fears is all about. She has managed to overcome her fear, and trepidation, whilst being in the public gaze. People will warm to her as a consequence. However, the choice of ring, I think, was not wise. Understandable the Wills would want a bit of mum at the wedding. But Kate wants to be his wife, not his mum. The curse of the dead woman on the ring is not lost on many women. Diana, sadly, came from a dysfunctional, upper class family and was handed over to yet another one. The ring symbolised her betrothal into unhappiness and we all know that she ended up divorced and dead, far too soon. Shame then, that Kate could not have suggested the ring become part of a household object - a photo frame of Diana, or a collar for fine wine. Instead, she takes on the mantel of Princess manque with a heavy burden on her heart finger. Hopefully it will be too valuable for her to wear everyday as I fear the bad 'karma' it carries could weigh heavily on her fresh, hopeful life. Nevertheless, Kate seems the kind of person who is pragmatic and strong (coming from mining stock) and perhaps she is just the right kind of grounded middle/working class element to be injected into an upper class neurotic family system. Perhaps the ring cycle will be broken after all.

New CBT book coming soon

Heard today that my new book is out November 1st. It's 'Change Your Life with CBT' (Pearsons) and I have to say it changed my life writing it. I was very pleased to be asked to write it, and found researching CBT was a fascinating journey. Although I have done several different trainings, I found CBT extremely useful, as it challenges the negative thinking that creeps in daily...almost unawares. Anyway, I'm looking forward to promoting it, and hear it will be Book of the Week and is already doing well. I'm proud of it.

However, have been saddened by so much of the world's news today, not least what is happening in India re the Commonwealth Games. I feel really sorry for all the displaced people who have been sacrificed for the games, and all the children and poorly paid workers, who have been drafted in to try and deal with so much corruption and disruption at the eleventh hour. We can only hope they receive some reward for what will have been nothing but arduous poorly paid labour.

Also the couple in the suicide pact remind us how easy it is to succumb to those darkest hours before dawn, when all seems to hopeless. And yet, life always hangs by such a precious, delicate thread. Imagine they had met, talked, connected, and actually found something to hold onto in each other instead of gassing themselves. It could have been so different after all.

Kerry Katastrophe

Found myself watching the show Kerry and Me this evening and feeling utterly depressed by it. As we were meant to be, I think. The sadness of the emptiness. The emptiness of the meaninglessness. And meanwhile, the children, wandering around, digging for shoes in the rubble, nibbling on stale cake, wandering around, looking after themselves, while Kerry is wrapped up in her world and dramas. I am not angry or censorious about her - she clearly is struggling with her demons - but I am deeply saddened for the children, and wonder if she were not a celebrity, whether they wouldn't be in care?

Why do we create such female traincrash victims? For we are the ones to be creating these women, like Jordan, Posh, Kerry, who are parodies of themselves. Empty vessels, gawped at and lauded for what? Being on TV. The sadness is in us. Our need for vacuous time-filling, for worship of something so meaningless as...fame.

Those four children need warmth, security, regular food and someone to sit down with them and do their homework. They need anonymity. Stability. Otherwise the cycle of abuse will continue, and the next generation of empty, soulless, pain will be handed on.

I am sorry for Kerry, indeed, I am. But I'm sorrier for the kids.

OLDER MUMS ROCK

I'm on BBC Five Live in a live debate tonight at 10.30 about the rise in older mums. 27,000 mums had babies at over age 40 last year and the number is set to rise. I am to address the issue of whether older mums are 'selfish' tonight, against someone who will no doubt say we are. I wrote my book, Birth Begins At Forty, when I, myself, got pregnant at 43. Back then, it was a rare occurence. It happened around the same time as Cherie Booth got pregnant with Leo, and Madonna was having Lourdes, and Caroline Quentin, Jane Seymour and many others. In fact, the men who had babies later had then a lot later: like Warren Beatty in his 60s, and Paul McCartney, and John Humphreys and Rupert Murdoch (72). Even 'Beam me up Scotty' from the first Star Trek series had a child in his 90s. Then we had Des O' Connor having one at 72, and appearing on TV daily, and David Jason, and many other men. But were they 'selfish'? No. They were great. They were lads, they were men, they could still get it up...and it was fine.

It seems to me the epithet 'selfish' is applied to women whether we have babies at 14 or 40, and at any age in between..oh, and after. It is always unseemly to have a baby late, and it's a crime to reverse the menopause, although men will pay thousands for penis extensions, viagra, or to prostitutes. That's fine, apparently. I think we have to live with the fact that times have changed. Our expectations are such that having a baby 'late' is what we want in a post Bridget Jones world. The reasons are myriad: we can't find the right man, Mr Right, is still like the yetti, and eludes us; we are not 'read' emotionally speaking, and, heaven forfend, we have careers, so are not happy to sit at home doing nothing, knitting or biding our time.

The debate will continue to run, even though we are thought to reach our fertility peak at 27, instead of 35 now. That means, all those women, at 25, who think they have years to think about having children - or ignoring it completely - are in fact, kidding themselves. However, psychology and sociology far outweigh biology when it comes to having babies. We may be 3000 years behind the times in evolutionary terms, but we won't want to have children any quicker with the way we want to live our lives today.

Selfish, nah! Revolutionary. Innovative. Good parents. Yes!