from our steamboat Bill boat window.

It wouldn’t be my site, if there weren’t at least 27 photos of a sunset, and here it is, in all it’s Bangali glory!

How long before we catch this English disease?

Monday May 15th 2006

Last week saw two interesting examples of just how wretched a society England is becoming - and certainly offered a worrying vision of where we as a country are going if we’re not careful.

The first instance came with the airing on the BBC of a documentary by journalist Carole Malone called The Trouble With Young People.

And, following on from a recent Channel 4 exposé of what the head of Greater Manchester police referred to as “feral children”, the average viewer wouldn’t be blamed for locking their doors and never coming out again in case they were attacked and eaten by marauding bands of hoodie-wearing teenagers.

But behind the inevitable hype and hysteria of both programmes an obvious truth began to emerge: it’s not necessarily young people who are the problem - their parents and their schooling have failed them.

Malone looked on with increasingly theatrical horror as a succession of spoiled, stupid and thoroughly horrid children paraded past the camera. But with a few exceptions, it was impossible not to feel sympathy for the kids and loathing for the parents who had not only allowed their charges to become as stupid and vapid as they now are but who positively encouraged it.

The fact that the assembled parents seemed to veer between extremes of either neglect or indulgence was applauded by one psychologist, Bret Carr, who openly admitted that he believed ‘discipline’ was a bad word. He also thought that kids should never be punished because “the child will already feel shame for knowing that it has done wrong, and by punishing that child you are only reinforcing these unhealthy feelings of guilt and shame”.

I was reminded of this ridiculous notion late last week while reading the tragic story of one teenager who was before the Children’s Court for the third time. And for the third time, he was on his own.

His mother’s excuses ranged from the fact that she had her own court date to attend to on one occasion to the rather improbable argument that she was attending a parenting skills class which clashed with one of her son’s appearances.

Having covered the Children’s Court in the past, I know how routinely depressing the place can be, as generation after generation of neglected, confused and potentially dangerous apprentice criminals get an early taste of what awaits them later in life.

And in my experience, and the experience of professionals who work there full-time, there is one constant in most of the cases: appalling parents.

While we must all take responsibility for our actions from the age of majority onwards, it is infuriating to see so many dysfunctional parents refusing to accept any blame for the actions of their kids.

In fact, after filing a report on one particularly active young criminal, his mother rang me to gloat that she was going to sue for what I had written and that nobody had the right to judge her - he was her kid, she sneered, and she’d bring him up whatever way she wanted.

And you only have to walk down virtually any street in this country to see the same attitude, if not as extreme, being displayed every day.

The other instance is something which seems an absurd example of British political correctness but is something which could easily happen here if certain special-interest groups had their way.

Last week the nine Afghan men who hijacked a flight from Kabul and forced the crew to fly to Britain were granted asylum - because it wouldn’t be safe for them to return to Afghanistan.

It’s yet another example of the ridiculous Human Rights Act, which makes it virtually impossible to deport anyone in case they might face persecution in their country of origin regardless of what crimes they are guilty of here in the West.

The Afghan decision comes hot on the heels of the news that the main suspect in the shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky was a violent Somalian criminal who has already been through the prison system but couldn’t be deported because his life would be in danger if he was returned to his own country. This begs the obvious question: are we meant to care?

But Irish groups like Residents Against Racism care.

In fact, they care so much that they wouldn’t deport these people from Ireland.

According to Rosanna Flynn: “We believe criminals should be sentenced and given an appropriate sentence - we don’t think they should be deported.”

Last week was a bad one for Britain.

Let’s hope we’re smart and honest enough not to allow ourselves to end up in the same mess.

© Irish Independent