By Julia Margo, Demos One of the themes to emerge from debates last week about the Karen Matthews/Baby P/shocking state of social services scandals was the ongoing saga of Britain’s teenage birth rate, or more precisely the so-called benefit claiming class of teenage single mothers who suck up state resources and services, do not work, [...]
Author Archives: JuliaMargo
Forcing teen mothers to work could be Labour's worst social policy idea yet
December 8, 2008 – 4:08 pm
Cruel parenting is not a class issue
December 8, 2008 – 3:50 pm
By Julia Margo, Demos I expect that my fascination with Karen Matthews is predictably middle class. Her crime may be heinous, but she has captured our imagination in her role as working class anti-hero: a reminder of how some people (the ‘other half’) live in today’s Britain. The weekend coverage of sink estates – the [...]
Another wrong move in the war against teenage binge drinking
December 4, 2008 – 2:35 pm
In political circles we talk about the Problem of our Binge Drinking Culture as if it is something that can be solved with the right intervention or piece of legislation. By Julia Margo, Demos Much recent research has explored the causes of youth binge drinking. Work at Sheffield University has suggested that “cheap alcohol is [...]
Political correctness stayed the hand of the nanny state
December 2, 2008 – 10:37 pm
Baby P’s face is now so familiar to me I could sketch it blind. But his face now represents much more than a story about the tragic death of a baby, an abusive family or the failure of one local authority. It says something about our national approach to children, social care and families. By Julia [...]