DEREK JAMESON

So says the British Medical Association in reports issued just as the Government comes out with a lot of fatuous nonsense supposedly telling Britain's children how to succeed in life.

Someone should commission a report on the yawning gulf between the adult world and the young. Nobody is immune. Camilla Parker Bowles' son, Tom, under fire for snorting cocaine, is said to have been exposed to drugs at Eton.

"Do the facts indicate a fundamental malaise?" asks Professor Martin McKee, one of the BMA experts. "We need to know why."

Don't go away, professor. I'll tell you. Their parents are even more screwed up than the young. Marriage, cornerstone of the family, has lost its meaning. Every other person seems to be divorced. Hands up - I'm on my third marriage myself.

Children are left to fend for themselves as parents work ever-longer hours while struggling to cope with the stress of modern life. Expectations are raised to lunatic levels by a devastating bombardment of television commercials, glossy magazines and junk mail.

Not much of a world to grow up in, is it? But hold on. Here comes yet another Government study entitled All Our Futures. It reckons teachers should allow children more freedom to express themselves.

You probably share my view that the younger generation seem to be expressing themselves rather well when it comes to writing the history of the years leading to the third millennium.

The report has recruited Lenny Henry, his wife, Dawn French, film director Lord Puttnam, conductor Simon Rattle and others to tell us the secret of success.

Creativity. That's the answer. The Government's chosen experts are unanimous. They reckon teachers should concentrate on raising morale, motivation and self-esteem by allowing children to develop their own ideas and personalities.

Their words of wisdom will not be of much use to a schoolgirl wondering how to cope with motherhood at the age of 15 - or the sheepish father hoping mum and dad don't find out what's been going on after school.

Now we hear that the Child Support Agency, one of the biggest bungles of all time, is to crack down on teenage fathers. "We are not going to let them get away with it," says Home Office Minister Paul Boateng. "We are going to make it clear to young dads that if they go around impregnating young women, well then there are consequences for them."

NO ONE WILL WIN THIS NASTY WAR

I'M a great believer in my country, right or wrong, but for once in my life must do a U-turn and speak up against this nasty little war that nobody is going to win in what's left of Yugoslavia.

Icould just about go along with NATO's action while Slobodan Milosevic's forces were at the receiving end, but can't take any more annihilation of innocent civilians accompanied by our side's glib excuses and crocodile tears.

God knows the Serbs have committed appalling crimes in Kosovo. That said, in my book two wrongs do not make a right. The death of a single make-up girl in a television studio is too much for my stomach.

The astonishing thing is that Tony Blair is the hawk in this situation. He is said to feel aggrieved because President Clinton won't commit ground forces to an all-out war in the Balkans. What madness.

CONSORTED EFFORT THAT FAILED

THE Duke of Edinburgh complains that sections of the media treat him in a "negative" manner. Translated, that means they don't like him. He's quite right. They never have.

In a weekend interview, he told author Gyles Brandreth that the tabloids have turned the Royal Family into a soap opera and admitted he feels desperate if he finds the British press alongside when he goes abroad.

"I know they'll wreck the thing if they possible can," he says. Yes sir, especially when you open your mouth and refer, for instance, to your Chinese hosts as "slitty-eyed."

Prince Philip got off to a bad start immediately after World War II, despite his own impeccable war record. It turned out he was not a Greek god after all, but of German origin. Ever since his air of haughty superiority has been put down to Teutonic arrogance.

His detractors were always sniffy about "Phil the Greek", a humble naval lieutenant with no money, becoming consort to the Queen and turning himself into a Field Marshall, Admiral of the Fleet, Marshall of the RAF and leading light in 800-odd organisations of various colours.

As for his much vaunted conservation crusade, there are those among us who wonder how it is that the President of the World Wildlife Fund has probably blasted more birds out of the sky than any man alive.

FUNNY IDEA OF COMEDY!

BOMBASTIC Michael Winner has the neck of an outsize giraffe. He makes a speciality of stirring it up for all and sundry, but doesn't hesitate to take the critics to task for rubbishing his latest film, Parting Shots, released last week.

"A nice little comedy," is how he describes it. "Do see it because it's funny," says the film maker.

The film, I should explain, is about a loser named Harry - played like a lump of wood by singer Chris Rea - who has six weeks to live and so decides to murder all the people who have been rotten to him.

"I've no words capable of conveying the sheer eye-boggling-jaw-dropping-mind-numbing awfulness of this movie," wrote Sunday Times critic Cosmo Landesman. "Is this the worst British film in history?" asked The Sun.

Are these papers telling Rupert Murdoch something? He owns both - and pays the acerbic Mr Winner big money as a columnist, restaurant critic and raconteur. When he's not making awful films, that is.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.