First Impressions

Fresh back from a wonderful time in Venice and the best part of a week completely without listening to or reading any news, my first thoughts are "We're becoming as bad as America" — Police shot at in an M5 pursuit, just days after biker Gerry Tobin was murdered on the M40, and Liverpool's 11-year-old Rhys Jones the country's latest victim of gun crime.

Commenting on a past post about gun crime, Jeremy from Liverpool suggested using dog training to help reform disruptive teenagers. Has anybody else got any suggestions about how the worsening trend towards a gun culture might be reversed, besides the Government's usual more legislation?

UPDATE #1: I have now seen Iain Duncan Smith's excellent piece in the Daily Mail:

This social decline has come about because of the breakdown of the family, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, and the collapse of any political will to uphold the law.

Britain is now truly the sick man of Europe, with the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, divorce, alcoholism among the young, drug misuse and educational failure.

He suggests introducing a policy of zero tolerance towards all anti-social behaviour, ensuring the courts act more efficiently in dealing with offenders, and that the police, who he says "are not only weighed down by bureaucracy but have been rendered almost powerless against offenders by the State's obsession with human rights" must reclaim the streets. Picking up on last month's Social Justice Policy Group report, he also discusses practical steps to tackling family breakdown, reforming the welfare state and dealing confidently with drug and alcohol abuse.

In case anyone had forgotten, this is but one very solid reason why we need a Conservative Government after the next general election.UPDATE #2: "Anarchy in the UK"

I see that Cameron has also been busy while I was away, calling for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped and replaced with a new Bill of Rights and for a strengthening of family and community bonds to help counter the rise of yob culture:

We need to make men realise that having children is an 18-year commitment - not a one-night stand. We need to make mothers realise that it's work, not welfare, that offers their family the best future. We need to help couples stay together, not drive them apart with the tax and benefits system. And we need to make society as a whole - that's you and me - realise that we all have duties to our neighbours.

Now I just need to check out Louise Bagshawe's Reasons to vote Conservative at ConservativeHome.