There is nothing quite as pathetic as the spectacle of sixty-four Labour MPs huddling together to sign a letter that reeks of stale tea and intellectual bankruptcy. These individuals, who likely require a parliamentary aide to help them find the 'on' switch on a laptop, have decided that the salvation of the British youth lies not in education, economic hope, or a functioning healthcare system, but in a blunt-force ban on social media for anyone under the age of sixteen. It is the ultimate performative gesture from a party that has forgotten how to lead and settled for merely policing the playground.

The logic provided by these luminaries is particularly delicious in its stupidity. They claim the UK 'risks being left behind' if it does not follow Australia’s lead. Imagine, for a moment, being so devoid of original thought that your primary motivation for domestic policy is a desperate need to copy the homework of a country that is essentially a giant, sun-bleached outdoor prison. Since when did Australia become the North Star of civil liberties? The 'left behind' argument is the siren song of the mid-wit politician. It suggests there is a glorious race occurring—a frantic sprint toward a digital dark age where the government decides which pixels are safe for your teenager to consume. Being 'left behind' in a race toward authoritarian paternalism is generally considered a victory by anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex, but in the hallowed halls of Westminster, it is seen as a national crisis.

Let’s be honest about the motivation here. These MPs are not 'protecting the children.' They are protecting themselves from the crushing realization of their own irrelevance. If you cannot solve the housing crisis, if you cannot stop the rivers from being filled with raw sewage, and if you cannot figure out how to fund the NHS without taxing the breath out of the working class, the next best thing is to pick a fight with an algorithm. It is a classic redirection of attention. By framing the internet as a demonic entity that must be exorcised, they shift the blame for the mental health crisis among the youth from their own systemic failures to a TikTok dance. It is much easier to ban a smartphone than it is to build a society worth living in.

Then there is the sheer, staggering technical illiteracy of the proposal. How, exactly, do these sixty-four geniuses plan to enforce this? We have already seen the farcical attempts at digital age verification in the past—bureaucratic nightmares that inevitably result in a private tech firm, owned by some Minister’s second cousin, creating a massive database of citizen IDs that will be leaked to hackers in a weekend. The kids, of course, will bypass these 'bans' in approximately four seconds using a VPN or a burner account, leaving only the law-abiding and the tech-challenged trapped behind the government's digital iron curtain. It is a law designed to be broken, which is the worst kind of law, served up by people who think 'The Cloud' is something that happens when it rains in Brussels.

On the other side of the aisle, the Right will inevitably offer a counter-performance of mock outrage, shouting about 'freedom' while simultaneously salivating at the prospect of the increased surveillance capabilities such a ban would require. They hate the ban because it’s a Labour idea, but they love the control. It’s a race to the bottom, with the British public trapped in the middle, being treated like a collective of toddlers who can’t be trusted with their own thumbs.

This is the state of modern governance: a paternalistic necrophilia where politicians try to breathe life into dead ideas of total control. They speak of 'safeguarding' while they dismantle the very structures that actually keep a generation safe—like a future that isn't a bleak, low-wage spiral of debt. They want to turn the UK into a curated, digital gated community where the gates are made of cardboard and the guards are elderly men who still use 'Reply All' by accident. It’s a farce, it’s a distraction, and it’s a testament to the fact that our leaders have absolutely nothing left to offer but the illusion of protection. Buck Valor is not impressed. I am, however, deeply bored by the predictable cycle of 'thinking of the children' as a cover for total administrative incompetence. If you want to save the kids, try making the real world less of a dumpster fire, and maybe they won't feel the need to escape into a digital one.