Actions and consequences

While the BBC conducts "social experiments" with Young Mum's Mansion "reality" TV show, the real reality of young mums is aptly displayed by the mother of the abducted child Shannon Matthews.

Karen Matthews has 7 children from 5 different fathers. She's lived an idle life on benefits at taxpayers expense including a home for her brood. Her children have never known a stable family life but instead have seen a string of feckless lovers paraded before them - probably referred to as "uncles" or possibly even "daddy".

Although I do not want to denigrate young single mums - I know there are many who are in that situation through no fault of their own and really do try to make the best of what they have - the reality of single parenthood is far more likely to be the Karen Matthews reality than that depicted on Young Mum's Mansion.

The offspring of single mothers are more likely to skip school, more likely to leave school unqualified, more likely to offend, more likely to become junkies, more likely to end up in prison, more likely to commit suicide, more likely to commit violence  and more likely to end up spawning children without a stable family themselves.

The response of the liberal left - and therefore any government we have - is to tell us that these young single mums need "help" to get out of their misery.

But the vast majority of young single mums are not unhappy with their lifestyle - far less ashamed of it. They enjoy leading indolent lives at tax payers expense. They can parade around their estates during the day - the young mums manor - with their baybees or watch their favourite day time tv shows with the latest "uncle" (invariably some equally feckless benefit addict sponger with a taste for cheap lager). Come the evenings and weekends they'll be found in the grottiest pubs up and down the country - their broods at home in the company of "uncles" or running around the pub like wild untamed feral animals.

Their ambitions extend no further than the next cigarette, joint, can of lager or "uncle". They don't want jobs, they don't want self respect - they just want more benefits so they can continue to live their idle lives the way they want.

Until a government realises that the modern welfare state rewards people who choose to live lives of idleness at the expense of tax payers then nothing will change. They don't need more sex education at ever younger ages, they don't need more money or extra services - they need to be taught that rights carry responsibilities and that actions have consequences.

That is the big problem of modern Britain - the cradle to the grave welfare state and the lack of a moral baseline has led to a generation of people who no longer understand that actions have consequences - whatever it is. To be fair, they are not the only ones - our politicians no longer accept that responsibility. Where once upon a time a politician who had done wrong would do the honourable thing and resign - they now cling on to power as hard as they can claiming that what they do in their private lives is not relevant.

Well, sorry - but it is. These politicians chose to become leaders and with the  position of responsibility comes - naturally enough - responsibilities. Whether they like it or not, the way they behave - whether it be publicly or privately - is going to be seen as a guide by millions of people as what is acceptable - whether it is fathering several children with several different women or lying about what they said or did not say in Parliament.

When a nation has leaders who don't understand the principle of responsibility, when our lawmakers ignore the fact that actions have consequences then it can be no surprise that the people of that nation lose all sense of these things too.