Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on homecoming jihadis, electrifying memories and needlessly scaring the kids

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes.

Published
Something to worry about

THE hardest task for any TV drama is recreating the recent past. You may get the 1960s cars and the fashions right but it can still feel like 2019. And then one little incident suddenly bursts with authenticity. In Endeavour (ITV) it was the moment when the cop touched the door handle and got a static-electricity shock, thanks to those smart new polyester carpet tiles. Remember that? Took me right back.

IN the coming months we will see lawyers queuing up to assure us that their client, a homecoming jihadi or jihadi bride, is absolutely no threat to Britain and must be readmitted to the country. Here's a suggestion. If the law firms are so confident, let them sign a bond of, say, £10 million to cover the cost of death, damage or injury if their little darlings turn out to be not so angelic, after all.

I'VE lost count of how many times we've heard Remainers banging on about Britain in the EU being "part of the biggest trading bloc in the world." Well, so what? Since when has membership of any club guaranteed national wealth or individual prosperity? Money doesn't always trickle down. Lest we forget, in 1900 Britain had the biggest Empire in the world - and the worst slums in Europe.

WHEN the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, I remember thinking: "Thank God, no more terrified children." Those of us who grew up in the Cold War never expected to be here today. Nuclear Armageddon was just a four-minute warning away, and a couple of Russian missiles was all it would take to turn Birmingham into a puddle of molten glass. When I was a child, every low-flying airliner, every crack of thunder was the start of World War III, until proven otherwise. We lived in a constant state of dread.

SADLY, childhood terrors have not gone away. They have merely been transferred from nuclear war to climate change. And while some of the older kids who walk out of school in protest think it's a bit of a laugh, I bet thousands of younger ones are genuinely terrified that their planet is doomed and they and every other living creature will perish horribly. My unfashionable guess is that, like most generations, they will live longer, healthier, happier and richer lives than their parents. Today's kids will see amazing breakthroughs in science, energy and medicine that will transform human life for the better. And there are even signs that the real global threat, overpopulation, may not happen.

AS for climate change, we will cope because we humans have a million-year track record of coping and we always cope. Scaring children needlessly is easy but it's unforgivable and it never tells the whole story. By all means recycle more plastic and save the polar bears. But don't give in to fear, kids. The future will be better than anyone has told you. You are lucky to be alive in such times.