The moron race

Is David Cameron an idiot, or is this just what he thinks we want to hear?

Young tearaways who were stepping onto the crime ladder in their mid-teens needed to realise from early on that they would face unwelcome curbs on their own lifestyles if they persisted.

''Common sense suggests that with young people you need to hit them where it hurts: in their lifestyle and their aspirations.

"I'd like to see judges and magistrates tell a 15-year-old boy convicted of buying alcohol or causing a disturbance, that the next time he appears in court he'll have his driving licence delayed.

"And then I'd like that boy to tell his friends what the judge said.''

It's hard to choose the most moronic part of this. Is it the idea that for a 15 year old to buy alcohol (and I'll bet Cameron did at that age, just like me) is equivalent to causing a disturbance?

The idea that delaying teenagers getting driving licences, and thereby keeping the ones who don't drive illegally out of work, is a sensible suggestion?

Or perhaps it's the suggestion that a teenager will leave court to tell his friends what the judge said - I assume Cameron meant he or she would do this respectfully.

Oh, wait. No moron race would be complete without Beverley Hughes, the children's minister:

[she] accused Mr Cameron of "lurching to the right'' to appeal to his party's hardliners.

"The fact is that the Tories have no solutions and no family policies to speak of other than going back to a two-tier family tax policy that would disadvantage and treat as second class all children and families whose parents are widowed, separated or divorced.

"David Cameron is not proposing solutions for the future of our country, he is just lurching to the right to try to appease his divided party.''

This wet rag excuse for a policy is a lurch to the right?

Cameron has no policies except tax preferences for married couples? Er... oh, yes. And the one we're discussing.

Let's just say this slowly for them both: Children are programmed to push until they hit the boundary. They need discipline to let them know where this lies. Deferred punishments, especially ones that can be ignored, are ludicrous when applied to people whose horizons rarely extend very far into the future. Failing to give children these boundaries, right here, right now, is to betray them as well as the wider society.

It's really very FUCKING simple.