'Breakthrough Britain' - the Tory report on social breakdown

The Conservatives 'Social Justice Policy Group', chaired by Ian Duncan Smith, has just published an enormous report into social breakdown, with 190 recommendations for the Conservative party to debate and turn into policy in the next few months. The report homepage is here , and it splits into 6 sections, Family Breakdown, poverty, education, addiction, debt and the 'third sector' (charities and faith organisations). The BBC summary of the key recommendations is here

On an initial scan it's very promising. At last a politician with the guts to say that marriage is the best family structure, and to offer the staggering price tag of £102bn which family breakdown carries in UK society. It would be very easy to dismiss it all as 'nanny state telling us how to live our lives', but to be honest many of us aren't doing that good a job of living our lives.

The phrase 'breakdown society' is one used in the report and the accompanying publicity. It's something that many Christians have been going on about for years. Pray God that we now have a proper debate, and a new political consensus to do something about it.

1 day later: Gordon Brown scraps the plan for the Manchester supercasino. Yes! Maybe this is how a government of all the talents works - the Tories produce a report identifying a problem, and the PM announces to Parliament the following day what he's going to do about it. There are various whinings about the 'loss' of 2700 jobs - jobs which currently don't exist anyway - more important are the individuals and families who are going to be saved from debt, family breakdown and addiction. There's no point having a job if you blow all the money on slot machines.

gambling (its compulsive)

Sorry, but I get so angry at the governments gung-ho attitude to gambling, and having seen families break up because one was addicted to betting, I find this whole casino thing monstrous. So.....

Full House: the Lords, who voted out the supercasino bill by 3 during the week.

Knave: Lord Carey, aka the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, who missed the vote because he was watching a film. Sorry, but if you're going on Question Time on national TV, and you know it's likely to be a big story, and it's going to be a close vote, that just doesn't strike me as clever. Ok, I'm not a retired AB of C, and I'm sure Amazing Grace is a good film, but what if the bill had got through by 1 vote instead of lost by 3?

Ace: another bishop, James Jones, who suggested on Thought for the Day that if gambling was such a good way of sorting out urban regeration, perhaps the council leaders from Blackpool and Manchester should simply play a game of poker, and the winner gets the casino.

2 of Clubs: Gordon Brown, who raised some of his gambling taxes in the budget. Not to deter gambling of course, but to raise income. More gambling = more income.

The other thing which clashes is that all this goes on whilst the death of Bob Woolmer is still being investigated. One of the popular theories, which is still speculation so who knows, is that it involved people linked to the betting industry, who made money out of match-fixing which Woolmer planned to expose. A feature on the radio this week - highlighted the problem of illegal gambling in cricket, and how hard it was to control. It just seems bizarre that we know that betting ruins lives but yet our government wants to see more of it.