THE BLACK STUFF...

When Alan Bleasdale's seminal Play For Today was screened in 1978 I was exactly the sort of prim and rather priggish student portrayed in the 1978 drama. It was quite common then for lefty students adorned with badges to hitch across the UK to save rail fares. Whether I would have got into a van packed with navvies is debatable but I certainly recognised myself - and the grim late 1970s - in a play which has stood the test of time supremely and which was shown on BBC 4 last night.

Despite the comedy, it showed a world which many would like to think had disappeared. In some ways, it has.

The smoking chimneys of Middlesborough are now demolished yet this is the town predicted most to suffer from the oncoming cuts which are going to sweep us back to the 1970s in a way which some thought unthinkable in the boom years. Capitalism still rules.

Those most likley to bear the brunt of it all are still the people at the bottom.

What has changed starkly is the consumerism and expectations which have seen millions burden themselves with debt in an attempt to emulate the rich.

Yozzer Hughes didn't even have a bank account - not unusual in those days. Yet he gambled all in a foolish bid to become the boss.

The message of Bleasdale's play was that those who have will always defeat those who don't.

It was a world of desperation and mean streets .

Liverpool itself, then a near-derelict skyscape of unemloyment and real poverty, may have changed in some ways beyond recognition. But the roots of Bleasdale's polemic are still there.

What was also striking was the notion such a political and serious drama was once screened at prime time on BBC 1 as a Play For Today.

Earlier in the day, I switched on the telly randomly and caught the Manchhester auditions for the X Factor. Largely a parade of sad, untalented people determined to "live the dream" of overnight success which these days is the Nirvana for a generation fed a relentless diet of celebrity culture and pap television. For most, it was an exercise in humiliation by the Botoxed and seriously wealthy.

Yozzer Hughes and his mates wanted to "be somebody" too. Unlike the X Factor competitors, they just wanted the chance to do some hard graft and earn a decent living. The subsequent Boys From The Blackstuff series showed the waste and the tragedy of the Thatcher years.

It is that world which the policies of Clegg and Cameron are about to deliver us back to.

I doubt any TV station would today have the courage to screen drama os similar weight.

I wonder if any of the Liberal Democrats swanning round the Conference Centre in Liverpool caught it. And had the grace to hang their heads in shame.