with my 16-year-old daughter.

And she was asking me

what can she expect with her future?

We were talking about what colleges to go to

and what kind of jobs might even be available

in this new COVID reality.

And she's had a tough year.

You know, her GCSE exams were cancelled here in Britain.

And for those of you, and the rest of the world,

it's a real point in your high school career

where you're judged and you're graded

on how well you're gonna be able to compete in the future.

There's just so much confusion that she has right now.

If she goes to college,

will she be taking classes virtually?

Will there be any jobs after that?

What is this new future look like

in this lockdown economy or lack thereof?

And you know, she's not alone.

There's a lot of children

that are asking a lot of questions.

And I feel like we're responsible

because we haven't given them any hope

as far as what's gonna happen in the future,

because all we've given them is uncertainty.

And that's because we continually see a lack of leadership,

we see a disproportionate response to this virus,

and we see a total lack of science-based decision making.

Which is not only ruining our economy,

which is the backbone of London,

it's also ruining the future of our children.

And it's not just my daughter that's thinking this.

The Prince's Trust recently did a survey

of 2000 16 to 25 year old children or actually young adults.

And they said we are at risk of creating a lost generation.

And some of the figures were absolutely shocking.

41% of these young children said

it looked like now their goals were impossible to achieve.

41%.

Another 38% said now they think,

in this new pandemic reality,

that they'll never succeed in life.

And then on top of that,

another 43% said they'll probably never have

a job they love.

And when you get into poorer communities

and less advantageous students it goes up to 55%,

of actually believe they'll never have a job they love.

Think about that.

Think about being a teenager

and believing you'll never have a job you love.

You know, when I grew up as a kid

my mom said, "Brian, you could do anything you want to."

And maybe, that's just the mom being a mom,

but I really believed it.

She said, "You wanna be an astronaut?

You can be an astronaut.

You wanna be president?

You can be president.

You can be anything you wanna be."

And I went at life that way

and I've always treated my life that way,

that if I worked hard enough,

I could have anything I wanted.

And I still believe that.

We've gotta give this impression to our younger generation.

They're the ones that are gonna be taking care of us.

They're the ones that are gonna be funding

our health services and building our economy.

And if we don't give them this hope,

then we're literally doomed.

Everything is doomed,

because literally the children are our future.

And so that's why I'm frustrated.

And I place the blame squarely on our leadership.

Again, there's been a total lack of leadership.

Again, a disproportionate response to this virus

and a total lack of science-based decision making.

We know we could get this economy back

on track almost immediately

if just started making intelligent decisions.

We know we could protect those at risk

and actually make a proportionate response to this virus.

And finally, let's make some science-based decision making.

Plain and simple, let's really lay out what we need to do

and get everyone back to work, back to school,

and let's get this world back

to where our children have a future.

And they at least believe and can dream

that they can go and do anything they want

and be anything they want.

They know where they can go to college.

They know that college is gonna be a real experience,

hopefully with real people, just like my experience was

and it literally changed my life.

And so that's what I wanna talk about today.

Please leave your comments below.

If you're in that age group

and you're feeling this way,

if you're a parent of a child

and you're getting these feelings,

or if you have a contrary opinion, I'd love that.

Share this video.

If you want your elected representatives to hear this

and you want them to and to listen and make a change,

time is running out.

We need a new direction.

We need someone that can get up there

and make these changes and really show some leadership.

And again, get everything back on track

and give new hope to our younger generation.

Thank you very much.