2nd opinion: Four more seasons of blame

At last! The season of goodwill is over. The most stressful, argumentative period in the calendar. Even if you say you've had a peaceful Christmas, I'm sure that was only because at least one of you was the peacekeeper.

So what's next? The season of depression? Or perhaps the season of mild indifference? Who cares?

Now Christmas is over, we are left looking forward to another year pretty much like the last one. I know that's a bit cynical – new year, new start and all that – but what sort of changes am I going to see in my work as a mediator?

Apart from the usual evolution in work systems, and the odd funding surprise, I expect our task to be much the same. Although, if we are to learn from the previous year, I should remember the statistics presented at our recent annual general meeting, which compared issues raised for mediation in the past year to the questions raised five years ago.

They demonstrated that, while we have always found our neighbours' noise to be their most irritating trait, in the past couple of years we have increasingly found their children's behaviour equally annoying – in North Staffordshire we have recorded an almost 300% increase in this category.

The past year also saw a rise in the number of complaints about asylum seekers. A look at the newspapers will also show a vast increase in the number of column inches devoted to this issue.

It is important to remember that as a nation we frequently shift our focus between different groups whose behaviour or existence we blame for our collective high blood pressure. It's been a long time, for instance, since I heard someone complain about travellers or lone parents.

So who’s next? Will we get worked up about the urban menace of wind chimes?

I'm not saying no one complains about these groups any more; I'm merely trying to illustrate how the subjects of our disaffection change over time.

So who's next? Which groups will be blamed for all that we are unhappy with? Is it time for children and young people to rise up and complain about the old? Or will we get worked up about the urban menace of wind chimes? If we are to learn from Christmases past (so that we can get cross with the right people this time), perhaps we should look at what we have achieved with our previous judgement and bile.

Well, we are near the point when we can say that we played our part in the process of setting one generation in opposition to another. Our demonisation of children is almost complete. We all know that all young people are either on drugs and/or committing crime.

And don't forget asylum seekers – we have been led to believe that if they weren't here, then we'd have a thriving health service or some other such nonsense.

Having just stood in the cold to have a cigarette, I've realised that in a few years' time smokers could be at the top of the hit list ("I want you to evict my neighbour because I've seen him smoking. I've got him on CCTV and I've kept incident logs too …"). Just the thought of it has me reaching for my fag packet.