Are you a 'Neet'? Are you 'not in employment, education or training?' The numbers of young people who don't have a job, who've struggled to make it through college or university only to find a gaping black hole in front of their feet, is soaring...it's incredibly depressing and sad. One in six young people is a 'Neet' (depressing enough label all by itself, anyway), which means a whole generation of young people demoralised and robbed of the chance to get themselves up on their own feet and experience the satisfaction of making your own way in the world.

I won't get started on the greed of the fat cats and bankers which has brought us to this place - and we bear our own responsibility for the mess too, let's be honest. But there is one bright side, if, like me, you like a bit of a scrap. Some of these young people, sure, will just drink more heavily, sink their depression in crime or drugs or whatever comes quickest to hand. But others - I am absolutely sure - may start to look at our society with fresher, more disaffected eyes.

Way back in the 80s and 90s, the supporters of the miners and the road protesters and the anti-poll-tax campaigners were often drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, from the long long dole queues. During the 80s laws were brought in to prevent 'flying pickets' - groups travelling around the country to support striking unions. (There was even a band called the Flying Pickets - they're still blooming touring if you want a little history trip). And during the recession of the 90s, the Criminal Justice Act was brought in to curb the illegal raves and springing-up protests that were making the endlessly-in power Tories all nervous and sweaty around the armpits. During periods of high unemployment, those in power are well aware, restlessness and dissatisfaction increases. People start to get angry.

And that's because when you have a job, when you spend every weekday working and every weekend walking, like automata, around the high streets and the identikit shops that fill our towns and cities, it's easy to stop thinking about the way our society works, about the essential unfairness of the way we have organised our lives and our world. But once you're tipped out of that comfortable, numbing routine, you may begin to question the set up.

And worse (as far as the powers that be are concerned), when you're unemployed you've actually got time - plenty of time, far too much time - to do something about it. And so you may drift along to a road protest camp for the first time in your life, because there's nothing on TV that afternoon and you're fed up of counting the lines on your duvet or the creaks as you walk down the stairs. And once you get there, and meet people who are doing something, who are actually taking action, who are not helplessly sitting back but striking a blow for themselves...you may well stay.

Photo: Flickr user Roger Blackwell, of City Care workers outside Norwich City Hall campaigning to save their jobs in April 2009.