And just imagine if they did!

NOW THEY PAY PEOPLE TO SPY ON YOUR CHILDREN

There is certainly a problem with youth crime, but to suggest that it has only occoured during Labours tenure is really stupid. I've been mugged three times over the past 18 years, twice when the tories were in power, once more recently. so by that statistic, the tories were the ones that didn't do anything about youth crime

If you have unregulated capitalism, then inevitably emphasis is transferred from 'community' to 'individualism' and the 'citizen' is replaced by the 'consumer'. Our young people are brought up to only place value upon the 'material'. The root causes for this so called delinquency must lie with the cynical exploitation of the young by advertisers and the desperate scramble for the teenage (and younger) pound by scores of multi-national retailers. They exploit the insecurities of youth, focussing upon sexuality and exagerated forms of masculinity. "If you don't buy x,y and z you'll never get laid, you sad bastard!", "If you dont buy this - (fill in the blank) - then you wont gain the respect of your mates,....... you fucking loser!"

In addition to this, media outlets such as the Mail are responsible for vilification of the so called 'under-class'. When society treats you as a failure, as worthless, its hard not to believe it. Our young people need hope and aspiration, not to carry the blame for the failings of 'adult' society. The hopelessness and apathy of many young people is a sad legacy of a succession of governments who have struggled to find a role in a post-manufacturing Britain for those young people not afforded the luxuary of economic stability etc.

Its time to learn to respect our youth.

Sorry for the rant. I'm just growing very tired of the Rights portrayal of working-class youth. When young people and morality are mentioned in the same sentance you just know they're not thinking of their 'little Hugo'!

Nice summation

Nah. We just need to hit them until they do as they're told. Common sense.

The Mail and its ilk are also responsible for whipping up fear and hysteria over crime (which, overall, is down) and making the situation worse. But its readers will never see that as the Mail is the "crusading voice of truth in PC gone mad Britain".

Agree with you Dan Widdy

Peer pressure has always been on of the biggest catalysts for antisocial behaviour, trying to prove that you're a big man etc.. And the youth product businesses only seem to exacerbate it. I remember at school I got bullied because my parents wouldn't buy me the latest £50 trainers or sportswear or because we didn't go abroad for holidays. Parents who are strong enough to fight against this 'must have' mentality and are able to just say no, have my respect. I don't think I would be able to do it, which is why I wouldn't want to have kids.

But on the other side, is this mainly about having a strong family unit? I do sometimes think the Mail has a point when it talks about the demise of the family and good father figure. Is this something that liberalism in its self has caused? Or is it just a result of the increased freedoms of modern life?

Although I think family circumstances can contribute to many issues within childhood develpoment I still believe it is greatly overplayed by the Mail and its ilk. Divorce, single parent families etc are not issues reserved for the working classes, all sections of society are affected.

As I said, the greatest factor i think is that of aspiration and self-confidence. Although a lack of strong role-models within the family unit could contribute to issues concerned with low self-esteem, ambition etc. equally a child brought up within an unhappy family environment is surely equally disadvantaged.

Is the divorce rate the result of new found social freedoms? I think it's far more complex than that. I believe that the consumer driven society we have created has conditioned us to always be striving for the next - and better - thing. We, as a society, are deeply unhappy and crucially unsatisfied. We now have ingrained, a feeling of inadequecy, that our lives are destined to be ultimately unfulfilled - that is unless we buy the latest Nokia!! No matter what we have we are told we want more, so it's not hard to see how this has permeated social interaction and ultimately how we conduct our relationships.

And of course, all of this unhappiness and emptiness causes frustration and cynicism amoungst the masses, which tabloids like the Mail loves to pander to. Indeed, what we see via the Mail readership are people who are simply insecure and vulnerable, people who would rather apportion blame to others than take responsibility for their own shortcomings.

They're still a load of cunts though!

What you're also missing is the instability caused by the Thatcherite introduction of 'flexibility' into the labour market. It's much easier to bring up a contented, healthy family if at least one parent is in long-term, decently-paid, meaningful employment. Working down the mines may have been hell, but the communities that surrounded them were stable, creative and cohesive. There's a thought on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cortonwood announcement.

Very true.
At least Thatchers kids turned out alright!

All kinds of factors are involved in the rising divorce rate (not least that there is now now stigma or barrier against a woman being able to get a decent job and support herself). We always resort of blaming consumerism for everything, but I'm not convinced it has the big impact on our lives that we are constantly being told it does by the media (and sinner winner man shouting into your face as you walk down Oxford St about how your recent purchase of pants and socks from M&S was somehow influenced by the devil. Deeply annoying). That feeling of inadequacy has always been there. Call it the human condition or existential angst. Part of our hand-wringing guilt complex about buying stuff and spending money comes from the same place. It is just stuff after all, whereas being trapped in a crappy marriage is actually soul destroying.

Some good points there.

Yes, I agree feelings of angst and inadeqecy have always been there to an extent, indeed, it is this part of our psyche which helps fuel the machine of capitalism. Its just that, it is this part of the 'human condition' which is exagerated and exploited by consumerism, and ultimately it leads to a very cynical view of people. It feeds into the Rights view of human nature as being fundamentally self-serving, greedy and agressive.

I think my point is different to the issue of consumer guilt. I was trying to explain that the pressure placed on all of us by consumerism causes greater unhappiness. We have never had so much individual choice yet this freedom carries with it higher expectations of self. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, it can increase the pressure felt by those already marginalised in society.

With regards divorce, i would be reluctant to attribute it to emancipation (i think thats better left to the Mail), as i also said, it is a very complex issue. Yes the stigma of divorce is no longer, but as i was trying to say, i think our throw-away culture has fed into us treating everything in life as disposable. ............................GOD Im depressing myself! Will this self loathing never leave me?!

Oh My God! My last post started to sound like a Daily Mailesque rant against modernity didn't it!! Maybe I'm not so different from a Mailer after all?

Friday fatigue I call it!

Don't get me wrong, i have simpathy for mining communities. But i do feel that in some cases they made a bit of a rod for their own back with the 'doing the job my father & grandfather did' philosophy. Surely many could see that the coal was not going to last forever, or was to become more and more expensive (and thus inpractical) to extract. Why didn't more of the young people try and broading their scope by staying on at school and going to Uni. Very few jobs are long term these days, you have to broaden your horizons. What Maggie did needed to be done but i agree the way it was done was very wrong.

I think the switch from a producer-orientated society where you define yourself by what you do to a consumer-orientated society where you define yourself by what you buy has been a seismic one and its effects have been discounted too easily in public discourse. It's not a subject you hear much discussion on outside of academia, really.

Also, when thinking about divorce, we also need to consider that marriages these days are expected to last longer. In the past it was much more likely that one married partner would die early from illness, industrial injury, war, or in childbirth. The idea that in the past everyone got married at twenty (eighteen for the girls) and lived together until dying in their seventies is just plain wrong.

I see what you mean, but I don't think it's as bad as the media make out. Most of us can't afford to live in a throw away culture. Christ, I've got jumpers older than some of you lot!