Our Legacy...What Legacy?

Spring is now well-advanced on our little allotment in South Gloucestershire in the good old Dis-United Kingdom.
Mild weather has meant that the cloches and improvised polytunnels (yes, I know, horrible things, but needs must) have remained open to the elements.
And everywhere one looks signs of little plants striving to grow bigger can be seen.
All this botanical industry had put Nosher in a pensive mood. We were sitting in our old deckchairs outside his shed on a fine afernoon sipping parsnip wine.
'We nurture our little plots of land' he said slowly 'because we view them as having a value that is greater than what we can extract from them. We put horse manure into the ground every year, and we keep alive old English varieties of food plants. When we are gone, that legacy will remain for others to benefit from.'
'I feel an analogy coming on' I muttered, but Nosher did not seem to notice.
'But when you look at our little country' he continued 'what legacy have our generation provided for the young of today?'
'Well, we had "you've never had it so good" under Macmillan in the 50s' I said 'the "white heat of technology" under Wilson in the 60s (plus lots of strikes and Flower Power, of course), we had North Sea Oil in the 70s under Heath and Callaghan, plus the Three Day Week and the Winter of Discontent; in the 80s we had the Free Market under Thatcher, when she sold off the nation's assets and squandered the revenues from North Sea oil to make the rich even richer; then in the 90s we had Black Monday and the Citizens Charter under Major, and the rich got even richer still and politics descended into amoral pragmatism; and then with New Labour under Tony "I'm such a nice guy" Blair we had lots of hypocrisy, lots of spin, lots of meaningless targets to achieve, lots of wars, and the rich got even richer again; and finally, under Gordon the Moron we've had Northern Rock and the impoverishment of the poorest people in society. Oh, and the rich carried on getting even richer. That's about as much as I can manage on your parsnip wine.'
Nosher directed one of his 'you're so stupid looks' in my direction.
'No! That's not really what I meant' he spluttered 'I mean, what kind of world are the young growing up in? They are tested from almost the day they are born, every day they are bombarded with advertising that seeks to manipulate their desires; parenting skills have pretty much disappeared completely in some areas of the country, so we have teenagers roaming the streets while their parent or parents are at work or lounging about on welfare benefits; social morality has almost evaporated whilst the young are the most likely targets of violent crime, which seems to rise inexorably; our education system is so poor that many of them will end up unemployable, even if they want to work; if they are employable they face a life struggling to pay mortgages on their houses, assets that will be taken off them when they're old and need care; those who aren't employable will simply live off the state and breed more unemployables which increases the tax burden in the increasingly smaller number of taxpayers; and finally we've got all this pseudo-liberal claptrap convincing them that they're victims of society, and it's society's responsibility to put things right for them, which, of course, it doesn't do. What does that all add up to?'
'Not a very nice life' I agreed. 'And certainly not a situation that encourages self-responsibility - it merely encourages greed and exploitation. Keep people permanently worried about how they're going to pay their rent or their mortgage and they're less likely to object when the Government takes us into yet another pointless war. And for those who live off the state there's not much inducement to do much except demand more welfare benefits.'
'Not much of a legacy, is it?' said Nosher.

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