Urban - and family - heroes needed

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Disaffected young men have no positive role models says Mr Grayling

According to Tory Chris Grayling, they have been replaced by so-called "trash TV" hosts like Jeremy Kyle and yobbo footballers who take drugs, get into fights and even end up in court on rape charges.

The result is they have helped spawn a generation of unemployed, welfare-dependent, drug-taking and dealing young men with no positive role models.

It is a problem that has been identified by politicians from all sides for years, and Mr Grayling's analysis is not particularly new.

But few have spelt it out quite as bluntly as the shadow work and pensions secretary.

"In too many places, in too many communities, we have a Jeremy Kyle generation of young men reaching adult life ill-equipped for it, lacking the right social skills, lacking a sense of purpose and responsibility, lacking self-confidence, lacking the ability to seize on an opportunity and make the most of it.

"For too many of them, this is the beginnings of a permanent lifestyle. On the margins of society, living hand to mouth on welfare, drifting from despair to irresponsibility, from taking dings to peddling drugs, from aimless idleness to active criminality." he said.

Selfish antics

Similarly, the notion that certain celebrities must shoulder some of the blame by presenting poor role models is not original.

In his speech Mr Grayling says: "Our young boys are too often drawing lessons about life from footballers and celebrities who behave in monstrously inappropriate ways.

Mr Grayling wants more support for urban heroes

"Many footballers who are earning more in a week than many families will see in a year get themselves arrested, pick fights, take drugs and set a rotten example. Their selfish antics are then replicated by young people."

Mr Grayling also blames the government for "abandoning" this class of young men and he points out that former support structures - churches, working men's clubs and trades union branches - no longer filled that role.

The lack of "urban heroes", positive male role models and, all too often, fathers at home have all contributed to the problem.

Where Mr Grayling attempts to carve out a distinctive Tory approach to all this, however, is in the remedies he offers.

Family policies

He suggests a "zero tolerance" approach to petty crime combined with tougher sentences, and the appointment of more male teachers and more help for those "urban heroes" who carry out voluntary work with disaffected males.

"We need to promote positive, socially responsible male role models and we need practical measures to combat family breakdown, worklessness and poor educational opportunity," he suggested.

Needless to say, this is all a million miles from David Cameron's so-called "hug a hoodie" approach and is being seen as an attempt to push the Tories back onto the sort of tough, family centred policies it formerly saw as its natural territory.

What is almost certainly the case is that Mr Grayling, like others before him, have identified the problem and his analysis may well strike a chord with voters.

His remarks will undoubtedly spark some argument over precisely who is really to blame for this generational change and whether governments ever have it in their power to do anything about it - particularly at a time when celebrities appear to have a far more powerful influence than often-discredited politicians.