respect

no i am not talking about that stupid party that gorgeous george galloway is involved in, he is so committed to it he has to escape it by going into the celebrity house. he must be a bit pissed at the moment if he was out and about he could see if he could a nomination in for the liberal democratic party (and truly how are they going to get into power if they have a leader whose followers are called mingers.....)

no i am talkng about tony blair and his respect agenda.

the main points of it are (from bbc.com):

Consulting on idea of evicting nuisance families from their homes for three months
Police and councils to have to hold "face the people" sessions - with the public able to demand tougher action
More use of parenting orders and a new national parenting academy to train officials on giving advice
Youth opportunity cards giving discounts on activities for youngsters doing voluntary work
New mentoring schemes, including one using top class athletes
Local councils to have to put family support networks in place
New nationwide non-emergency telephone number to make it easier to report nuisance behaviour

the tories see it as knee jerk, the liberal democrats see it as being a mish mash (and of course mash in this case does not refer to booze..) of gimmicks.

some of them seem to be exactly that. some seem to be just excuses for people to phone up and cause bother for neighbours they don't like, mind you my drug taking emo singing acoustic guitar playing neighbour has annoyed me enough that i was tempted to see if i could get an asbo against him.
and i can't wait for the new nationwide telephone number - what is the betting that:
1 ] it is always engaged
2 ] it will have an irritating menu system
3 ] there will be horrid hold music
it will lead to more anti-social behaviour.

i would quite like to see the face to face for demanding tougher action - you can see that ending with a baton charge or two.

the parenting academy i would like to see come into affect. i would like to see prospective parents have to apply to get a license for children. as you walk around you can see there are a number of people who have kids who just shouldn't have had them in the first place, and really don't want them. on the radio today there was a report about parenting and while the idea of the parent academies where shot down because of it being nanny statish - the people who argued this were also saying that the government should be making sure that these parents do not fall below a certain level of finance to keep the kids out of poverty.
so when it interferes in one way it is a nanny state.
if it doesn't interfere in another way it is an uncaring government.

of course no one said - mmm maybe the parents were irresponsible for having kids when they must have known that they were not going to be able to afford the child.
it has to be said because of the attitude of a few parents i have little love for children. to have a child is choice that parents make - but somehow i am expected to pay for it. perhaps i can get time off to look after my teddy bears.
perhaps because i have done my time in the parenting jungle i think that some want it both ways they want to be able to blame others for the fact that their children are oiks but then they complain when others want to get involved to resolve the issue.

the top athletes as mentors. yeah i can see that working, and how much will that cost the tax payer. or do they really mean it'll be a footballer who is a non-league club? (not that there is anything wrong with them - just not top athlete, and maybe if they hadn't contined selling off school playgrounds.......)

all in all i am with tony, in that something has to be done. but as several people have pointed out there is a need for role models and those role models have to also include the people who make the rules.
so whisper it quietly when you say david blunkett, peter mandelson, keith vaz.... (and technically tony blair with his lies that took us into the iraq war).

perhaps blair is onto something but he does need to clean house first before he can ask the rest of us to become "respectful" citizens.

perhaps he can enlist the boys of respect to help him, though they have seemed to have lost control of their mp......