I HAD the pleasure of attending the live broadcast of BBC Radio 4'sAny Questions? at the Everyman Theatre on Hope Street, Liverpool, on Friday night.
The sense of anticipation was heightened given the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Croxteth just a few days before.
The panel of Peter Oborne (columnist for The Daily Mail); Ian McMillan (poet); Paul Vallely (associate editor of The Independent) and Louise Bagshawe (author and wannabe Tory MP) was excellent and on the whole there was some very sound comments made.
On the subject of gangs, I do agree that the are 'fake families' which have replaced certain children's real families who, for a variety of reasons, are not there.
Afterwards, I asked my mum - who grew up in Toxteth in the late 40s and early 50s - whether things are really worse now.
She said that sadly it is. Places like Toxteth were not the lawless areas they have sadly become and in their street, all the children played with each other children and it was very rare for anyone to venture away from that immediate community.
Also, even though there was a pub close by there wasn't any trouble, people who were a little tired and emotional apparently didn't feel the need to vandalise other people's property or fight in the street. In fact, the only crime my mum can remember is that one morning her mum went in the back yard to collect the washing and some of it had gone missing...
A few years ago, my auntie came over from Australia for the first time since the family left England in the 60s and they went to see their old house and street. When one of my mum's sisters tried to ask one of the neighbours a question, it was clear she was drugged up to the eyeballs.
So how did we get to this?
Personally, I think there's an awful lot of people in this country who need to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their actions - and all that goes back to your parents and how you are brought up.
Certainly, my wife and I were brought up in a way where you respect your parents and others and you had a real sense of not wanting to 'let them down'. Seeing disappointment on your parents' faces was the worst thing, you always wanted them to feel proud - something which has carried on until today.
And this wasn't in those halcyon days of the mid 50s where you doffed your cap to the local bobby and ate bread and dripping and were grateful for it - this was the 1980s, the so-called 'me me me/loadsamoney/greed is good/there's no such thing as society' days.
That proves it doesn't matter what decade you grow up in, but it does matter what values are instilled in you.
Nowadays, we may not have a poverty of wealth, but there's certainly a poverty of aspiration and respect for others - something which creates a society in which these hate-filled gangs thrive.
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