Celebrity opinions. Young people’s opinions. Equality/parity of treatement.

A bevy of well-established people in the music world, and particularly in the UK music sphere, have written to the government asking for Brexit to be reversed as it will do immense harm to the music business in the country, and radically reduce the UK’s influence on the music industry throughout the world. They’re not just pop musicians. Sir Simon Rattle is on the list. I doubt that the letter will make a great deal of difference but you never know.

Somebody or other commented recently that nothing is really an “issue” in the modern world unless it has been endorsed by a famous pop singer, musician, actor or well-known media personality. In this age of people not liking experts, the non-experts have taken their place to some extent.

And this morning I saw this headline:

Taylor Swift breaks political silence to endorse Democrats in US midterms.

I must confess that my first instinct was to laugh. Taylor Swift? Wasn’t she the one who sprang to fame through twerking? And can you take seriously someone with two surnames instead of a forename and a surname. But I pulled myself up short and decided that I did not want to become a grumpy old bigot who dismissed what young people have to say. And so I read on.

“Taylor Swift has made her first foray into US politics, publicly endorsing two Democrats for the upcoming midterm elections, while aligning herself to fight for LGBTQ rights, gender equity, and an end to the “terrifying, sickening and prevalent” racism in the US.”

Apparently she has been criticised in the past for being one of the few pop stars NOT to come out publicly against Trump.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Taylor Swift wrote on social media on Sunday night, in a plea for her young fans to register and vote. The post accrued 360,000 Instagram likes within the first hour.

Such is the power of social media!

“As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn,” she went on “Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values,”

Well, good for her, say I. After all, she has as much right to express political opinions as the reality TV star with no political experience who became POTUS.

And if she gets young people voting then I am all in favour of her expressing her opinions on social media.

I also read today that Buckingham University is asking new students to sign a contract pledging not to take drugs on campus. I am quite surprised they do not also ask them to promise not get drunk. It’s a very worthy idea but to me it smacks a little of those American institutions that get young girls to wear rings pledging not to lose their virginity before marriage.

By way of a contrast, the University of Sheffield has been criticised for giving detailed advice on its website on how to take drugs safely. The guidance tells students who take drugs with a needle not to inject alone, offers advice about crushing MDMA and how long to wait before considering redosing. 

A spokesman for the university said: “The university and its students’ union does not condone substance misuse in any shape or form. We do however understand some students may try drugs during their time at university. With this in mind, we think it is ­important to ensure that … if a ­student does choose to take drugs, they are as informed as possible and take steps to take reasonable precautions.”

A bit of sensible realism.

A young friend of ours has been speaking in the radio, on the BBC no less, about the University of Manchester banning clapping. Instead they are asking the audience at debates and speeches and so on at the university to use “jazz hands”. At first I imagined everyone being given huge expanded polystyrene or cardboard hands to wave in appreciation of good speeches, but of course that is not the case.

It’s the British Sign Language way of showing appreciation by raising your hands and waving them to and fro.

Even our daughter, only a few years older than the young friend in question (he is a mature student) agrees that maybe this is a bit of overkill on the protecting-vulnerable-people front. The idea is that some people, the hearing-impaired or those on the autistic spectrum, find clapping emotionally disturbing. Well, yes, okay, I can see that but surely if they have got as afar as university studies, then they have managed to adjust to and cope with everyday life.

Now, I once taught Spanish to a partially deaf young man and in everything he did by way of studies, not just with me, and in his work situation, he absolutely did not want people bending over backwards to accommodate him. He recognised that some concessions had to be made for him in the interests of equality and fairness but, as far as possible, he wanted to be treated just like everyone else.

And I find myself in total agreement with him.