London Riots Aftermaths, Clampham Junction The Bridge MAG image

A girl in her early teens draws on a cigarette at a Croydon tram-stop. She seems visibly elated as she explains to friends how she wrongly accused her mother of abusing her so she could escape her family home.

She says she is soon to have her own council flat, where she is looking forward to moving in with her boyfriend.

Would anyone bet that she won’t soon be joining Britain’s ever-burgeoning queue of teenage parents, doomed to a life of deprivation, poverty – and even violence?

To many observers, last August’s UK riots were an accident waiting to happen – and a symbol of how Britain has been failing its children for decades.

The classic vicious circle is that, for decades in the name of children’s rights, the British   government has contributed to the break-up of families, setting children against their parents.

When those children hit their 20s, not only they will express the torment they have been through in their childhood with violence, but they will also pass on the same criminal culture to the next generation….