Gordon Brown: 50,000 Chaotic families in the UK.

I was watching PMQ’s on Wednesday and I heard Gordon Brown making a throwaway reference to ‘chaotic families’.
For the record here is a straight lift from the transcript of what he said:-

The Prime Minister: If I may do so, I refer to the proposal that we are putting forward and the family intervention programmes that I saw in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). Let us be honest: there are about 50,000 families in this country that lead such chaotic lives that we need to intervene and turn them round. We need to make a contract with them that a no-nonsense approach will be adopted by them and by us. That is what lies behind the family intervention programme. We are investing heavily in that, and in the parenting tuition that is necessary as part of it. I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) will agree that that is a way forward. That is a better expenditure of money to help the children he wants to help than a return to the married couples allowance.

I have lived on estates with families who fell into this category, it is not funny. Let me tell you that there are hundreds of thousands of ordinary folk round the United Kingdom who are living in constant fear of the anti-social behaviour of the few. This certainly is a major issue in terms of people having the opportunity to live their lives in peace.

That said, I have major concerns with Gordon Brown’s statement on a number of levels.

Been looking at the reporting of Gordon’s statement. The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph.
Both papers take a broadly similar line referring to a good news story in Dundee in Scotland here where small numbers have been (at least temporarily) turned around.

So Gordon has made his statement on this topic and nobody appears to have taken him to task as far as I can see.

Let’s look at the numbers first. 50,000. Seems a very convenient round number. Where did this figure come from I wonder?

There are around about 2000 towns in the UK, 66 cities and many large villages all of which have the potential to hold a chaotic family or two.

I suppose you could guesstimate 20 families per town, a couple of hundred per city perhaps.

Maybe the town I live in is not representative but I would be surprised if there were as few as 20 chaotic families locally here, between drink and drugs problems and generational unemployment I feel that the figure is very much higher. I guess it depends on your definition.

I suspect that Gordon’s 50,000 is a substantial underestimate and that the true figure is very much higher.

Now nobody likes summary justice but that is exactly what Gordon Brown has proposed here.

Outwith stereotyping several hundred thousand UK citizens in the most outrageous fashion.

Where is the due process?

If a family find themselves in this particular category how do they appeal against injustice?

Lets face it. Standards are going to vary across the country. It will be very much easier to be classed as ‘chaotic’ in the leafy suburbs than in a peripheral housing estate.

This is symptomatic of the Gordon Brown syndrome. He was in the Treasury for years insulated far away from the concerns of real people. Now he is Prime Minister he has to pick up on issues he would not have even considered before and he is just not very good at dealing with them. Remember care centres for young, pregnant mothers?

This is soundbite Politics Mr Brown. Yes there is a major problem with anti-social behaviour across the United Kingdom. This throwaway remark demonstrates your complete failure to understand the issue never mind propose realistic solutions.

Yes of course there is a place for family intervention programmes. They can be effective for small numbers of the worst offenders though it would be interesting to see the ‘re-offending’ rates published in due course.

These programmes are worthy but essentially small beer. They could never be expected to stem the tide of bad behavious flooding Britain’s streets.

Successive Governments have been happy to stack off the underclasses in peripheral estates, facing generations of unemplyment, no foothold in society combined with the general removal of inhibitions are we surprised that there is bad behaviour going on?

Government is about big issues not pettifogging detail. We need programmes to put Britain back to work. All of Britain.

We need a coherent strategy for the development and training of young people. All young people.

Higher Education is fine but we cannot just ‘forget’ about the rest.

The way to reduce the plague of anti-social behaviour is to give folk a stake in society, a career and a living wage.

It’s easy to talk about family intervention programmes. It is very much more difficult to come up with policies which will tackle the real issues.

Let’s face it the Tories are not going to do any of this, they are on the record. Remember. “Unemployment is a price worth paying”.

Mr Brown is too timid and not really in charge of his party or the Government.

Looks like we are going to have to wait another generation or so before we see some new and radical politics in this country.

At the moment it is just ‘more of the same, more of the same’ no matter which party gets in at the next General Election.

As for the poor souls who have to suffer the depredations of a ‘chaotic family’ I am afraid they will just have to keep their ear-plugs in! (or move house.)