The 25 years since the creation of Channel 4 coincided with a substantial increase in mental illness among young people – depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, violence and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). At times The Daily Mail has implied this was cause and effect, that ‘Channel Filth’ wrecked our youth. The truth is much more interesting: Selfish Capitalism (or Neo-Liberalism) screwed them up.

The most startling scientific illustration of increased mental illness is a study comparing the mental health of 5,000 fifteen-year-olds in 1987 with the same number in 1999. Identical questions were asked of these very large samples. Overall, mental illness had increased from sixteen per cent to 24 per cent. But most horrifying of all was that the vast majority of the increase had occurred among girls, and girls from the highest social class: up from 24 per cent to a staggering 38 per cent for girls in social classes 1 and 2 (the highest). Four factors emerged as reasons: school performance worries; fears about exam failure; weight; and family problems (like parental divorce or disharmony). It is no coincidence that 1987 to 1999 was the period when boys and girls went from being equal in GCSE success rates to girls outstripping boys by some margin. Nor is it coincidental that this was when the pressure on women to be thin increased considerably, through role models, TV and advertising. Girls from the top social class were not just being told they could have it all, they were being made to feel like hopeless failures unless they succeeded in doing so – the grades, the body, the boyfriend, but also the labels and the lifestyle (clubbing, ecstasy and ‘Wild Child’ girls splashed across the press, like Amanda de Cadenet and Emma Ridley). Indeed, during this period the number of girls who had sex before age sixteen exceeded the number of boys (between 1984 and 1994, girls who had sex before sixteen went from sixteen per cent to 25 per cent).

But the pressures were not restricted to posh girls. As a thousand newspaper articles have chronicled (alas, with no discernible effect on the government), we have epidemics of ADHD, eating disorders and even autism. In fact, it is not completely clear that any of these have really increased in prevalence. It could just be due to more reporting and changed definitions. But there is little doubt about depression, anxiety and substance abuse (drink and drugs).