"Youth crime is an obsession for today's politicians, but in a small town in the 1980s there didn't seem to be much about. I came across drugs only when I met some wild boys from the exotic metropolis that is Thirsk. The violent crime I heard about, meanwhile, was largely distant and always terrifying: at primary school I was petrified of the Yorkshire Ripper until he was caught in 1981; later I was deeply troubled by the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh in 1986. The crimes the young people I knew were committing were the taping of the Top 20 from the radio (which was made especially glamorous because of the urban myth that someone from Leeds had gone to jail for it), underage drinking and smoking dope. No one I knew was arrested. However, my diary held a pleasing reminder that even a goody-two-shoes high-achiever like me got into trouble with the law. Our school, a Yorkshire state school, had made it to the London finals of a debating competition, previously the preserve of top public schools. The team was Simon, my political enemy (he was Tory, I was Labour; today he is a New Labour councillor), and me. We won, and to celebrate Simon and I and our supporters took over a flat in Fleet Street to which someone had the key, drank until the sun came up and were visited by the police at 5am, just as a fellow pupil was demonstrating how to wear an elephant-trunk thong he had bought earlier. Who could complain about the youth of today?"