Following days of riots in London and across the nation, Prime Minister David Cameron has said that every action will be taken to restore order and noted the rioters “complete lack of responsibility” and a “lack of proper parenting.”
Widespread looting has occurred in London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands over the last four nights. A number of shops have been burned down and three men died when they were hit by a car in Birmingham as they protected their property. MPs and peers have now been recalled to Parliament for 11 August to debate the riots.
The Prime Minister commented that the rioters have “a complete lack of responsibility, a lack of proper parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals - that is what we need to change.”
Phillip Johnston, writing in the Telegraph, noted that:
“Part of the problem is that the breakdown of the family (or an unwillingness to form one) has left a generation of feral adolescents without fathers or any adult males to act as role models. Parents rarely know what their children are doing, and exercise little power or authority over them.”
Max Hasting, writing for the Daily Mail, stated:
“The social engineering industry unites to claim that the conventional template of family life is no longer valid. This has ultimately been sanctioned by Parliament, which refuses to accept, for instance, that children are more likely to prosper with two parents than with one”.
Melanie Phillips wrote:
“A society that embraces mass fatherlessness is a society that is going off the edge of a cliff. There are whole areas of Britain (white as well as black) where committed fathers are a wholly unknown phenomenon; where serial generations are being brought up only by mothers, through whose houses pass transitory males by whom these girls and women have yet more children, and whose own daughters inevitably repeat the pattern of lone and utterly dysfunctional parenting.”
Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, said:
“Our sympathies go to the many people who have lost their livelihood and homes, and to the families of those who have lost their lives. There is no justification for the behaviour that we have witnessed over the last few days.
“I hope that these scenes will provide something of a wake-up call. One of the primary causes of this lawlessness is the breakdown of the family. Christian values have been replaced by political correctness and family values have been replaced by the ‘do what you want’ mantra of the sexual revolution. The fruits of this can now be seen on the streets. I would hazard a guess that almost none of those youths rioting have fathers who live with them and provide a positive role model.”
”It is vital that the Government do all that they can to strengthen marriage and address family breakdown. Yet the State alone cannot fix the problem. We need a moral revolution and a whole-scale return to the Christian faith. Nothing else will work.”
Links
Andrea’s Blog: London Riots – Symptoms of a deeper malaise
Daily Telegraph: London and UK Riots: The Long Retreat of Order
Melanie Phillips: Goodbye to the Enlightenment
Cross Rhythms: Rioters Are not'Scum'! They Are The Fatherless