Blaming a moral decline for the riots makes good headlines but bad policy | Tony Blair

Talk of a general malaise is misguided. The country's problems stem from too many dysfunctional households Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband made excellent speeches last week and there was much to agree with in what they said. None the less, in the overall commentary on the riots, I think we are in danger of the wrong analysis leading to the wrong diagnosis, leading to the wrong prescription. The

[fuldagap]

”Most of them are shaping up that way by the time they are in primary school or even in nursery. They then grow up in circumstances where their role models are drug dealers, pimps, people with knives and guns, people who will exploit them and abuse them but with whom they feel a belonging”