the state of the nation

There are two things you should never do. Number one: never watch the news before you go to bed; secondly never read a paper or watch the news on a Sunday morning. Why, 'cause it will do your head in that's why. The other morning Gary Newlove's wife delievered a very eloquent speech about the murder of her husband by three evidently deranged young people who were looking for trouble. There would be very few people who wouldn't feel sympathetic to this woman and her family. But it wasn't her or her sentiments that irritated me. It was the policeman afterwards. Having just delievered a speech about the many aspects of our culture and society that could lead to such a tragedy, the recording of Mrs Newlove's speech was followed by a policeman who claimed the murder was caused exclusively by alcohol. Apparently the miracle cure was to push the age of being legally able to drink alcohol to 21 and not 18. Two of the murderers were 16 and 17 anyway so what good did that do anyway. Mrs Newlove's local MP said that 'political decisions' were not to blame. Well how comforting that must be to be told the politicians have washed their hands of your husband's murder. Obvioulsy the 'Political decisions' made about anti-social behaviour didn't help Gary Newlove very much.
This morning another very eloquent lady appeared on some token chat show. Well the BBC have to tick a few boxes and say they show some interest in issues don't they? The woman's son had been murdered by a group of young idiots. She made the case that young people don't live in real communitities anymore, they live in virtual communities. This means that rather than have a respect for the people around you they idolise people and things who don't actually feature in their lives like guns or excessive amounts of money and material goods. There's no nurturing or care in the upbringing of these children. However I was raised on a council estate in London and I didn't kill anyone, there are plenty of young people who are very sensible and the minority of thuggish, insolent people overshadow them. Was anyone listening to that woman? Will anyone lsiten to Mrs Newlove? Whenever the government say they will make 'an enquiry' this invariably means that you'll never hear about it again or just hear what other people want you to hear, e.g. ban alcohol etc, no junk food, let's have citizenship lessons at school! etc. The media, politicians and the police are using other people's miseries as a platform to put across their own agendas. Do you really believe that if we voted for another government anything would change? More ex-public school kids and jumped up councillors telling people in deprived communities how they should think, eat, live etc and 'vote for me'. Will it save people like Gary Newlove? MT