Politics
At last, a political battle about the family. And not a moment too soon
25 November 2006
Since Labour came to power, there has been a hugely important social trend that almost no one mentions. The institution of the two-parent family — whether married or unmarried — has been disintegrating at a speed seen nowhere else in Europe. The proportion of children living with lone parents was 19 per cent when Tony Blair first entered Downing Street. Today it stands at 24 per cent. Between these two statistics lies a social revolution, in an area that no party has dared to talk about. Until now.
Mention the family, and trouble soon follows. It is a political minefield, strewn with the body parts of John Major’s government and a handful of reformist Labour ministers. Yet in the dying days of his premiership, the Prime Minister wishes to cross what he regards as a final frontier for the government. It is time for the state to identify bad parents, to correct them forcibly, to intervene and look after their children.
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