It’s been ten years since Labour came to power, say the Tories, and it’s high time they did something about families. Fathers are behaving irresponsibly, and this is causing their teenage kids to run riot around South London with an arsenal that would embarass a rebel militia. Bad parenting is causing bad kids that will grow up to cause even more social problems than now.
Step back a moment – let’s say that the kids are 15 to 18; they would have been born between 1989 and 1997, five to eight years before Labour came to power. I would suggest that these are Thatcher’s grandchildren; born to parents who had grown up in the relentlessly selfish era that saw large parts of the country in wretchedness, not just because their jobs went, but because those that kept their jobs saw their wages going less and less far and because there was not a social security system in place and because schools and training were cut back and those that fell into the prison system were given little chance to better themselves.
As much as it is the current Government’s responsibility to deal with the current problem, its roots lie in the past.
xD.
It often strikes me as one of the disadvantages of our system that we don’t take account of time lags enough. I remember in 1997 the Labour party being taken to task for that year’s A-Level results- when how could they have effected them.
Indeed – we won’t see the full benefits of SureStart, which started in 1998, until people enter the workforce.
xD.