A quote from Jennie Bristow on spiked-online, 10 January 2006

We are no strangers to official new attempts that teach parents how to parent, and push the philosophy ‘expert knows best’. But just because New Labour’s authoritarian agenda is familiar doesn’t mean that we should stop objecting to it. [...] The role of a parent is quite distinct from that of a law enforcement official – and trying to make parents into an extension of the police and truancy agency can only end in tears all round. It robs parents of the privacy and autonomy necessary to do the really important stuff for their kids – loving them, caring for them, disciplining them in the most effective way they choose. And while the government is screwing up the family in this way, it lets itself off the hook. Atomisation, crap education, the lack of inspiration or opportunities for young people – none of this, apparently, has anything to do with bad behaviour, and the government can do nothing about it anyway. Just blame the parents, and meddle even further with family life.

‘There is no such thing as Society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.’ At least Thatcher conceded that much. For New Labour, there are individual men and women, there are parents and there are children – all of whom have conflicting interests and negative motivations which need monitoring and mediating by the state. This is a deeply anti-social philosophy, and it needs nipping in the bud.