Unhappy families

I see Children's Secretary Ed Balls, and, reluctantly, I will resist the obvious temptation there, is launching a sort of mini ASBO in an attempt to deal with the growing numbers of young tearaways, a sort of Asboteenies club. This little lot is apparently going to cost £218 million on top of whatever cash is already being poured into the Family Intervention Initiative. This is where pain in the butt families sign good behaviour contracts whereupon the sun comes out, flowers bloom and bluebirds sing - oh and pigs fly.

The Government has done its level best to devalue marriage and make it as financially unattractive as it can to anyone who dares to tie the knot. At the same time it has given youngsters unparalleled rights with absolutely no responsibilities, the only thing a minority of them appear to have ever learned, with the result that anyone who dares challenge the yobs either ends up in court, or sadly, increasingly these days, dead, while the sight of a policeman on the streets, particularly within the same week as any incident reported to them, is as rare as rocking horse droppings.

All this is in a society where our leaders have failed at least one generation by allowing a sub culture to develop where school leavers see benefits as an acceptable career option.

Now perhaps, just perhaps, if policies had encouraged marriage and families, had ensured that children's rights did not extend to them doing whatever they liked without fear of reprisal, had produced a police force which policed rather than filled in forms, hobbled by targets and politically correct hogwash and we had a benefits system which provided a safety net rather than a comfortable crutch we might, just might, have had less trouble from prepubescent thugs.