I have a dream.

In it everyone in Britain works part-time instead of full-time.

In this wonderfully sedate future full-time work has been denounced for making us sub-human. It has been discovered, by lackadaisical scientists, that full-time work is actually to blame for all of life’s problems.

At first, in the late 20th and early 21st century, ‘Full Time Work’ was found guilty of creating great stress, unhappiness, and for preventing us spending enough time with our kids (and the inevitable social problems that follow such bad parenting). ‘Full Time Work’ was also found to be responsible for human beings getting into far too much debt as they bought endless crap on the high street every Saturday hoping this would help free themselves from their misery, as promised by the blanket advertising they were subjected to from their favourite, and most revered, celebrities.

Once the flood gates on full time work were opened (in this peaceful future) everyone began to recognise the elephant in the room and soon lots of other studies began to find that ‘Full Time Work’ was the cause of all our other major troubles too. It even appeared that people who were busy working longer and longer hours soon found themselves too pre-occupied with their work to keep tabs on what their elected representatives were up to (and a raft of unjust, repressive, nannying and interfering legislation began to appear).

Full-time work was also found to deliver a particularly bad deal for women, who largely (though not exclusively) really wanted to work part time once they’d had children so they could get an equal amount of time with their kids as they did working. And thus would be able to maintain social lives, self-respect through their chosen career, reduce loneliness and, at the same time, alter the child’s father’s perception of old fashioned roles in the home. In order for a mother to work part time then the father would have to as well, and thus he would began to appreciate the value of taking care of the home and having a more realistic view of childcare.

This shift in male attitudes allowed men to realise that a life split between a rewarding job to earn money and raising their children was not weedy in some way but actually very enjoyable. They soon found that they enjoyed hanging out with their kids and when they had got a tiny bit sick of them it was time for them to go to their two and a half week job instead. Being a better father turned out to give them a real spring in their step as they looked forward to a different kind of daily challenge when the two and a half day working week began.

The revolution against full time work soon followed and everyone in Britain lived happily ever after.

Or so I dreamt.

Sadly, when I mentioned this idea of a new part-time economy on the Daily Politics with Andrew Neil a few years ago, the politicians and presenters present laughed heartily at my idea, reasoning such a way of life was absurd. One (Norman Baker the Lib Dem MP) even claimed it had already been tried in the 70s and didn’t work.

Well, in the course of this blog, I’m going to try and work out if it could work and what would happen if it did. It is a huge and absurdly ridiculous undertaking but what the hell. My son starts nursery in a few weeks and I’m going to have another two hours a day to fill so I should be able to manage  it.

What I really need are cynics to explain to me why it couldn’t possibly work so I can take the argument from there.

dan@idler.co.uk