FURTHER EDUCATION - NOT FOREVER 21

Forever 21, yet another "young" high street store opened in Birmingham's Bull Ring yesterday. The city boasts the youngest population in Europe in a region which still claims chronic labour shortages. Nevertheless, the young shoppers, who looked very much like the student marchers of earlier in the week, formed an orderly procession as they waited for their next consumer fix. It was clearly this kind of behaviour that police had anticipated in London.

There was, however, more than one difference between yesterday's queues and the storming of Conservative Party HQ: participants in the London disorder were predominantly white, and - notwithstanding any subsequent claims by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group - likely to be mostly middle class. One can interpret this as either a cascading down of upper class/public school yobbishness, a sort of Bullingdon Club rampage for the masses, or an ascent upwards of the kind of behaviour expected of so-called lower class Chavs.

My perception of the group of people likely to have participated in last Tuesday's disorder, as distinct from those who may have instigated it, is that they came from "Middle England", either earlier in the morning or at the beginning of the university term, with no thought of conducting themselves in the manner that transpired. Indeed their lack of ability to think for themselves made them vulnerable to the kind of pack mentality which subsequently erupted.

This doesn't say much for our post-16 education system, or perhaps it does. For far from encouraging what the Coalition Education Secretary, the Conservative Michael Gove, has called "deep thinking", the British system seems to encourage precisely the opposite. For in reality it is the unsustainable growth of the this system - and of universities in particular - and its especially unaffordable building programmes, which has led to the escalation in costs now reflected in the rising price of further education.

In short, Britain has too many young people in full-time education, particularly at university, and too many foreign students. The main beneficiary of this situation appears to be the retail sector, the ever burgeoning number of high street and online outlets serving the youth market, together with associated media services which market and promote "fast fashion" and cheap consumer goods, including BBC WM who advertised the opening of Birmingham's "Forever 21" yesterday.

So Wise Up Young People, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Retail Chains !