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If The Young Ones hadn't been broadcast into his west Cumbrian living room in 1982,  Jamie Reed  would never have wanted to go to university, let alone run for parliament. Here, the MP for Copeland explains why the late comedian was a genuinely important and original cultural figure Certain cultural shifts are defined by those figures who embody the energy, vibrancy and immediacy of those periods of change. For my father’s generation, that figure was Buddy Holly. For me and my group of friends growing up in west Cumbria in the 1980s, that figure was Rik Mayall. It’s impossible to overstate the impact Mayall had upon my generation. It was a satirical, screaming, intellectual punk, accessible to bookworms and cool types alike. And for boys my age, Rik Mayall was its leader. When The Young Ones tore into my living room in 1982 my life changed. But for the People’s Poet, I would never have wanted to experience the squalor and madness of university life, and without that I w