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Snapshots of a moral wasteland
Daily Mail Comment 19th May 2005 With sick savagery, teenage tearaways attack a funeral procession in Widnes, smashing the windscreen of a limousine full of mourners. In Blackpool, a school is daubed with paint that will take £20,000 to clear up. The vandals responsible are between three and six years old. In Salford Phil Carroll fights for life after being assaulted by mindless yobs. Just up the road, teacher Linda Walker was driven to such desperation by thugs who targeted her house that she fired an airgun at the feet of a youth she believed responsible. For that she was jailed and lost her job. Her 'victim' sneers that the 'silly bitch' got what she deserved. These are snapshots of a moral wasteland. In the words of a top police officer, reported in yesterday's Mail, feral gangs with no regard for the law and no experience of parental control are reducing whole neighbourhoods to fear. So what is the Government's response? The Tony Blair who was once going to march yobs to the nearest cash point (which came to nothing) and remove state benefits from parents of truants and tearaways (which also came to nothing) now talks of the need to restore 'respect' and promises another crackdown. Fine words. But will his new measures have the slightest impact, when he so studiously avoids the real issue? Every society, in every age, has understood that strong families foster discipline, responsibility and civic-mindedness. Yes, lone parents often do a wonderful job. But human experience and academic research show that children from two-parent households tend to be happier, better adjusted and less likely to fall foul of the law than those from broken homes. But our politicians ignore that old wisdom. While other countries encourage settled relationships through tax breaks, successive Governments have removed every incentive to marriage and promoted single parenthood with a tax and benefits system that discriminates against couples. Such is the social climate encouraged by our politicians that a record 42 per cent of births in Britain are outside wedlock. And our divorce rate is Europe's highest, with 150,000 children a year suffering the trauma of family breakdown. Fractured relationships, the lack of male role models, an absence of discipline and stability in the home... doesn't it occur to anybody at Westminster that these may have a bearing on yobbery? Evidently not. A Government that is forever trying to change human behaviour in such areas as smoking and diet won't even consider the same approach on the issue of family stability. How self-defeating. How sad. |
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