Tough on Kids, Tough on the Causes of Kids...

Yet more macho posturing from the government, as Blair et al try to prove that they have bigger balls than Cameron and his 'Coolservative' clowns when it comes to issues of law and order and social provision - this time it is over the Child Support Agency (CSA). OK, now nobody in their right mind is going to defend the CSA's lamentable record in attempting (usually with little success) to get absentee fathers to pay for the upbringing of their offspring. However, many of its problems stem from the fact that, from the outset, it has been under resourced and staffed by workers on some of the lowest pay rates in the entire public sector (and that's saying something). So, what's the government's solution to this - reform the CSA, giving it the tools and staff it needs to fulfill its mandate? No, they abolish it, tell people to make their own arrangements for child maintenance, but then add that if absentee parents still don't pay then a new organisation will apparently electronically tag them, take their passports away and generally stigmatise them as criminals, despite the fact that they haven't actually been convicted of any crime. Yeah, let's get tough on these bastards! In fact, why don't we go the whole nine yards and castrate them with bolt cutters the first time they miss a payment - that way they at least won't be able breed any more kids they can't or won't pay for!

I seem to remember that before they came to power, the Labour Party said that it would be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime'. Fine sentiments, and if carried through might actually lead to lasting reductions in both the crime rate and, consequently, the prison population. However, identifying the true root causes of crime is difficult, and doing something about them would be expensive, take time and would seem too much like socialism for Blair's buddies in the right wing press. Not surprisingly, they've instead just opted to 'get tough' and lock more people up - that always plays well to the Daily Mail. As for the causes of crime - it is all down to 'soft' judges, bleeding heart liberals and the permissive society. Sadly, the same thing now seems to be happening with regard to social issues. Instead of trying to find out just why so many fathers seem to think that they don't have to actually support their children financially, they simply resort to criminalising the repeat-offenders. Of course, trying to look at the underlying causes of this anti-social behaviour might involve having to take a long hard look at this entirely self-centered, materialistic society we live in and the 'values' it promotes. Not only would that make people feel uncomfortable, but it might mean admitting that the market-led capitalistic model promoted by both Thatcher and Blair is fundamentally wrong. It might mean admitting that the needs and wants of the individual don't necessarily stand at the centre of the universe - he or she might also have a responsibility to the wider community and recognise that their actions could be harmful to that community. But hell, that sounds dangerously like socialism, and we can't have that coming from a Labour government, now can we?