Centre for Social Justice: David Cameron Has Broken Pledge to Support Family Values
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: David Cameron’s Coalition has failed to support marriage, unfairly penalised middle-class parents and done “almost nothing” to address the breakdown of families, according to a think tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith.

In opposition, Mr Cameron promised to make Britain “the most family-friendly country in Europe” and tackle the social problems arising from break-ups.

But in an audit of the Coalition’s first year in office, the Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by the Work and Pensions Secretary, said little had been done to support marriage and strongly criticised plans to cut child benefit for middle-class parents.

Marking the Coalition’s performance on family policy at just two out of 10, the centre concluded that the deal with the Liberal Democrats had seen family-friendly plans being watered down.

“Compromise to avoid difficult family policy decisions means it’s just business as usual,” the report said. The Coalition’s family policy was “a disappointing continuation of the last government’s failed approach”.

Gavin Poole, the centre’s chief executive, accused the Coalition of “compromise-driven inaction in tackling our devastating culture of family breakdown”. » | James Kirkup, Political Correspondent | Monday, May 09, 2011

Somebody, at Last, Speaks Some Sense on the (British) Family!
DAILY MAIL: Family breakdown is a "cancer" behind almost every evil affecting the country, a senior judge will declare today.

Mr Justice Coleridge blames youth crime, child abuse, drug addiction and binge-drinking on the "meltdown" of relations between parents and children.

He warns that the collapse of the family unit is a threat to the nation as bad as terrorism, crime, drugs or global warming.

The speech to family lawyers contains a fierce attack on the "neglect" of successive governments.

The 58-year-old judge, who is married with three grown-up children, will say family breakdown is an epidemic affecting all levels of society from the Royal Family down.

It is "on a scale, depth and breadth which few of us could have imagined even "a decade ago. It is a never-ending carnival of human misery. A ceaseless river of human distress.

"I am not saying every broken family produces dysfunctional children but I am saying that almost every dysfunctional child is the product of a broken family."

The judge, who is in charge of family courts across South-West England, will say he has a duty to speak out.

He will call on the Government to put the family at the top of its agenda, alongside the economy and the war on terror - and make it "rather more important than taking oaths of allegianc" [sic].

His speech will say: "Families are the cells which make up the body of society. If the cells are unhealthy and undernourished, or at worse cancerous and growing haphazard and out of control, in the end the body succumbs.

"In some of the more heavily populated urban areas, family life is quite frankly in meltdown or completely unrecognisable . . . it is on an epidemic scale. In some areas of the country family life in the old sense no longer exists." Family Life Is in 'Meltdown': Judge Launches Devastating Attack on Our Fractured Society >>> By Steve Doughty

Mark Alexander