Tackling knife crime + drinking with current laws

Watching Jack Straw (Labour) and Michael Gove (Tory) on BBC's Andrew Marr programme today, they were both having a cerebral-type debate about:

• knife crime laws - claims that current laws could see knife crime tackled effectively
• plans to criminalise young people drinking on UK streets - legislation to try to solve this problem

This kind of 'great and good' lip service aimed at solving a crisis in society will never work, imho. These people are way too remote.

I'm not sure how accurate my 'shoot from the hip' view here is, but see what you think...

Politicians, it seems, wrongly apportion too much blame on families for delinquent youth behaviour on our streets. As usual, it's relatively fortunate Tories - and now serving Government ministers - earning a comfortable living that say 'fix the family'.

Never on their radar, it seems, is the immoral / amoral business-led, greed-ridden corporate mentality that they rubber stamp regularly in Parliament which drains 'powerless' consumers (individuals, parents and young people - jo public like you and me) of their money, leaving many impoverished, with little of quality to aspire to. After all, who wants to become the average corporate slave, stabbing 'powerless' employees in the back to secure their next pay rise, promotion - that type of thing. Hardly motivating, is it?

Working closely with young people sometimes in my life, the problem seems to lay more with leading societal and business influences. You know, the types who like to line up weaker people and say to them 'you're fired' (eh, Alan Sugar 'et al'?) rather than build supportive environments for all to flourish. Does that sound a bit naive? Dunno - but just as naive is for lawmakers and business leaders to think companies exist for any other reason than pure profit. While the debate is on, I just thought I could say these things, else when can you... (no-one said life would be easy; but, good grief, there has to be some admission that adult society is at fault, not kids - they're just relative innocents.)

As long as the wealth generators and those cast as stewards of our taxes continue to practice legitimate extortion and, lest we forget, warmongering in a local, national and global theatre, we can hardly be surprised when young people - reflecting their elders oft-immoral activities at work in the world - become just like those 'thugs in suits' who lord it over others desperate to be seen as examples to follow in society.

Apologies for any offending parts of the rant there - but when you see corporate back-stabbing, managers, public servants and business leaders willing to do an (un)fair bit of dirty just to sweep up some extra cash and little focus on the human effect, it can make one a little frustrated.

Knife crime is a reflection of adult societal values and attitudes - it's obvious.