Some of you might remember THIS short blog post, I wrote in December. It was about a tragic news item concerning the alleged rape of an eight year old girl by two boys of just ten years old.
Last week, we heard of the horrific story of the two boys from Edlington, aged just ten and eleven, who tortured two even younger children, and subjected them to the most horrific abuse. If this kind of thing was a one-off, we could shrug our shoulders and say: "how terrible, but at least it doesn't happen all the time".
Yet, in modern Britain, such things are all too commonplace. We hear almost weekly horror stories of violent crime (often involving young children), gang culture, drug addiction, family and community breakdown. In my view, it is one of the worst problems afflicting our country.
That is why David Cameron is right to say that Britain is in social recession, and that we have to confront and mend our 'broken society'. It is no longer possible to deal with these problems by shutting up curtains or sweeping them under the carpet. As Mr Cameron stated in a speech on Friday:
"On each occasion, are we just going to say this is an individual case? That there aren't any links to what is going wrong in our wider society, in terms of family breakdown, in terms of drug and alcohol abuse, in terms of violent videos, in terms of many of the things that were going wrong in that particular family? I think we should ask these questions. And let me say at the outset this is not pointing the finger at one party or one Government, some of the things that have been going wrong in this country have been going wrong for years and for decades."
Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice (of which I am a proud to have an involvement with), is making great strides in developing a series of policies that could have a significant impact on repairing and restoring vital social bonds. Our priority has to be to strengthen families and rebuild broken communities. To reform the welfare system so that the vulnerable are helped and community benefits as well. To improve education standards so that the poorest have the same opportunities as those on higher incomes.
Britain is a great place to live, but there are deep rooted problems that are getting worse. Unless we have the courage to deal with them, we will never have a chance of solving the underlying social ills, that leads to Edlington, Jamie Bulger and Baby P.
P.S. You can read David Cameron's speech HERE.
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