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"The Daily Mail blames yobs etc etc on the lack of family values"

It's partly that, but more specifically the total absence of fathers in many of the chavier so call 'family' units, nowadays. A fathers job is (or used to be) to instil some values into their offspring, a sense of hour and responsibility and to, if need be, dish out a back hander when those offspring started getting lairy and thinking they could do whatever they please, whenever they please. But because proper fathers are few and far between nowadays you get estates full of illiterate youngsters, simply running riot - because there's no one to tell them to stop or make them stop if simply telling them is not enough - which is frequently the case if those kids aren?t very bright to start with. It is they, more than any other type of youngster that needs a father. Someone they can respect and who will guide them in the right direction, whether they like it or not.

Add to that the prevailing climate of lairyness in the mainstream media - the underling message seems to be that it is fun to be irresponsible, lairy, it's a laugh, and there are no negative consequences and no one will point the finger at you and declare you an idiot or waster - and you have a recipe for societal breakdown and disorder.

But you shouldn't take the Daily Mail to seriously. Nowadays, much of it's stance is a ridiculous stage hall act - huffing and puffing about family values, shameful sex, the permissive society and all the stuff that put retired colonels and 'Mr Angry' of Tunbridge Wells, into a lather. It doesn?t really mean it, not to the degree that you might think - it's just that it's a proven formula that has sold the paper since time immemorial - so, in a commercial sense, if it's not broke, one shouldn't try to fix it. There is substance to the general argument that the permissive society has led to the general breakdown of order and 'respect' in the inner cities, but one needs to approach that carefully, in an open minded and rational way, and not the hysterical, irrational, Mail way, as there have been many positive facets to the social revolutions of the 60's.


Officer Dibble

"but what if that father is an oppressive authoritarian bully"

Well, it's just 'tuff titty', is the flip answer. But seriously, shit happens. No way will ever be perfect (whatever that means) or utopian. But look at it this way - Gt Britain reached the zenith of her industrial and commercial power at a time (the Victorian era) when discipline, self restrain and honour were big deals on the social landscape. So, I think a few authoritarian bullies are a price worth paying if you're granny can go down the Post Office for her pension, unmolested by some scummy, brainless, chav yob, who at the moment feels totally unconstrained about beating her black and blue and snatching her purse, to buy fags, blow, or white Lightening. In fact I think it would be quite nice if one or three of these useless lowlifes got a good kicking. It would certainly cheer me up.

I don't like that phrase 'community values'. It sounds all wishy washy and airy-fairy. As though one is conferring one the general populace an innate, high minded, goodness and decency, which will shine through if you treat them with respect and liberalism. But that is grossly naive - I guess you've not mixed with many chavs and lowlifes? On the whole these types of people aren?t very bright. If you say to them ?Do what you want, we respect you and your alternative life choices? (right on, man), they will become distracted, they will flounder, they will become venal and lazy, resort to their base instincts. In short, if you make the mistake of treating them like intelligent, reasonable middleclass folks (which they are not) and let them do what they want, in many instances they won't do anything very nice or useful at all. This wasn't a problem in the past, as the church and society in general set down guidelines and a framework for the conduct of lives in the various social classes, and web-toed anyone who didn't live up to them. Now, the middle classes have removed those guidelines, basically saying - "Hey, it's all right to be a waster, to be a scumbag, to be thick. From now on we will respect you anyway - because you are just flowing an alternative lifestyle - but one that is of equal worth to our middleclass one?s of being university lectures, doctors, or noncy leftwing MP?s", like Hilary Benn.


"a child might become friends with several adult men"

Hmm, don?t know about that. Sounds a bit pervy to me.



Officer Dibble

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"This wasn't a problem in the past, as the church and society in general set down guidelines and a framework for the conduct of lives in the various social classes, and web-toed anyone who didn't live up to them"

I take it that this is just a guess on your part and that you haven't actually looked at church attendance rates by the urban poor in Victorian Times or read something like the writings of Henry Mayhew to find out the views of the Victorian poor about authority figures and what they thought represented good conduct?

Your view of Victorian society is a make-believe construct invented by the very middle-classes you blame for its decay.

'Community Values'.

Well, I do know a bit about your third example - working class neighbourhoods in northern England. And yes, I guess we did have community values back then - everyone knew everyone else's business on the street, you could leave your back door unlooked for the duration, and when there was 'trouble ut' mill' everyone on the street would pitch in. We were only prols, but we knew about responsibility, honour, dignity and charity. Back then people were content with the little they had. We were vaguely aware that there were others who had much more - we'd rented one of those posh new TV sets, at two bob (10 pence) at week, from the 'Wigfalls' man. But that was another world, not relevant to us, but nice to see their antics on TV, all the same. So no one was covetous back then, and burglary and theft, never mind anti-social behaviour, was almost unheard of (though I was only about 4 years old, at that time).

But all that order, responsibility, and community, was held together by tough working class ways - if the missus didn't have a spotless house and 'the tea' wasn't on the table by 6.00pm, she might expect to receive 'a back hander', from the 'man of the house' (though this was always water off a duck's back and the next day they would be well 'luved-up' again). If it came to light that the kids had been playing up that day, the man of the house would unbuckle his belt... And WOBETIDE any child who ever brought a POLICEMAN to the door!


?any individual father doesn?t have to bother applying society's rules and guidelines to his family - who is going to check or apprehend him if he doesnt.?

He doesn?t now, granted. But he did back then or he would be ostracized, singled out as a deadbeat or waster. A man who could not provide for his family, could not keep his women and children in check, would lose the respect of his peers. Consequently, everyone made much more of an effort.


?Yes figues like Brunel were great bullying Victorian pioneers but in general there was a huge amount of oppression and exploitation in Victorian England - the class system was rife and just to take one example, female domestic servants had to work virtually non-stop scrubbing floors etc 7 days a week until they more or less dropped and if they dared complain they were out on the streets.?

Granted, it was tough and harsh. But it was that way of life that made Britain the superpower of the Victoria age. I?m certainly not saying we should go back to how it was then. Just saying maybe we should heed those lessons and somehow apply them in a modern context, without the excess and cruelty of the past.



Officer Dibble

"I take it that this is just a guess on your part and that you haven't actually looked at church attendance rates by the urban poor in Victorian Times or read something like the writings of Henry Mayhew to find out the views of the Victorian poor about authority figures and what they thought represented good conduct?"

Actually, no. I haven?t. It was just an educated guess, an amalgam of all I have ever read about the period or seen in documentaries and dramas. There was good and bad back then, as there is now. It wasn?t all doom, gloom, workhouses and dark satanic mills. One could equally argue that the Victorian era gave birth to the noble institution of philanthropy and such luminaries as - Robert James Lees, George Whitefield, Charles Dickens, William Booth (Salvation Army) and Dr Bernardo.

But what?s also interesting about charity and philanthropy in the Victoria era was that there was a distinction drawn between ?the deserving poor? and ?the undeserving poor?. I reckon many of today?s social problems may have been fermented by the removal of that distinction, by the middle classes, over the past 30 years.


Officer Dibble

The "deserving poor" is a concept that was developed well before Victorian times.

But its nice to know that you are happiest with a position in which the middle-classes assess the worth of poor people to find out whether or not they fit in with the minority (and it always was a minority) who should be classed as "deserving"

Yep - a return to the poor laws is what we need with the middle-class worthies of the parish having the right to assess and stream the poor as if they were a secondary class of citizen. But strangely enough, these ideals died out in Edwardian times and were long, long since dead by 1975, so the past 30 years are totally irrelevant.

"But its nice to know that you are happiest with a position in which the middle-classes assess the worth of poor people to find out whether or not they fit in with the minority"

Who said anything about the middle classes deciding on who is worthy? Not I. In fact the thrust of my scribblings in this thread is that they have made a right hash of this type of thing and should naff-off before they do anymore damage.


(and it always was a minority) who should be classed as "deserving"

And, pray sir, could you elaborate on why it was that only a minority was usually classed as deserving?


"Yep - a return to the poor laws is what we need"

But that's not what I said, is it? If I could take you back a post, you will observe (near the bottom) that what I did in fact say was an emphatic - "I?m certainly not saying we should go back to those ways."


"the middle-class worthies of the parish having the right to assess and stream the poor as if they were a secondary class of citizen."

Well, some of the types we have been discussing here (scummy, malevolent, brainless yobs, who beat up grandmas), could hardly be described as "Ist class citizens" could they? Shit, they're not even second-class. Hey, if truth be told, we all know that, though everyone has notional parity, there's is an underlying pecking order - we naturally respect some people and we look down on others, based on their natural abilities, appearance, and talents - or lack of. We are all simply glorified apes after all. On an evolutionary timescale we have been out of the jungle for but the blink of an eye.


?the past 30 years are totally irrelevant.?

I strongly disagree. It is the social policies instigated by the middleclass (local government an social worker sorts) since the mid 60?s that has lead to record levels of family breakdown, divorce, dependency on the state, the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, illiteracy and soaring levels of crime and anti-social behaviour (since I was a lad, anyway). Who else is to blame? Who else has been in charge of these areas of local social policy (education, housing, social services) since the 60?s? What I was pointing out is that in the last 30 years the young, idealist, middle classes, fresh out of uni, adopted a noncy, poncy, doctrine that absolves scumbags, morons, losers and wasters, of any blame, of any responsibility ? ?It?s not their fault, we can?t blame them. They?re ?damaged?. They have been oppressed by elitists, fascists and globalizes. So, lets just sweep their shortcoming under the carpet and give them some 'counselling". In short, however contemptible they are, non of them are now ?undeserving.? So none of them have to make the effort to smarten themselves up. And that?s the problem.

But it seems we do have some common ground here. We both seem to blame the middleclass. So, have you heard about my ?Beat A bureaucrat campaign? And would you like to sign up? It?s great fun and it deters local government nonces from a wasted life of public service and from being, well, bureaucrats.


Officer Dibble