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I feel that I should start with an apology. Owing to a week’s holiday, this blog has not been updated for the past week – sorry about that! Anyway, whilst on holiday, I engaged in one of my greatest indulgences and consumed the contents of several newspapers each day and found – albeit unsurprisingly – that editorials were rife with commentary and analysis about the recent riots that devastated large parts of some of Britain’s largest cities. The articles raised several questions concerning cause, prevention and morality, though none offered anything that I believed to be a satisfying explanation as to why so many of our citizens threw sanity to the wind. Not that I am in any position to criticise. If I – or anyone else for that matter – was able to answer such questions then we would be quickly whisked off to Westminster and handed ministerial positions faster than a ‘youth’ could break into a retailer of electrical goods. Some of the arguments put forward in an attempt to explain the reasons behind the riots were truly preposterous, however, and served no genuine purpose as a result. The lack of male teachers in primary schools was put forward by one observer. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t see many four to eleven year olds smashing windows and setting fires in any of our major cities. If any dwarves are convicted over the next few weeks, however, then we can safely assume that these individuals have been framed and that parents nationwide should have taken action when their children mysteriously obtained a new pair of designer trainers and a fifty inch flat screen TV. OK, I realise that the individual in question was actually arguing that a lack of male influence during rioters’ early lives had led them to deviate from acceptable behaviour, but this presumption is so laughable that it only seems appropriate to respond to it in a facetious manner. Another laughable argument revolved around the UK’s high divorce rate and the dissolution of the traditional nuclear family. A proposal which further exemplifies the lack of sufficient thought that has been ascribed to these undeniably important events. Yes, a great deal of research has shown that children of divorce can be disadvantaged when compared to those that do not experience their parent’s marital breakdown, but I have yet to come across any research that shows that a child of divorce is more likely to engage in criminal activity. The way we are raised certainly has a significant influence over how we behave as adults, but any suggestion that a single parent is less capable of teaching a child how to distinguish between right and wrong is both a hasty and imprudent conclusion; there were almost certainly several other social and economic factors that influenced Britain’s temporary descent into anarchy. Let us not forget that we live in a society that is more avaricious than ever before. Also that many of Britain’s most successful individuals and those that sit in our corridors of power have engaged in less than virtuous behaviour in recent times. Irresponsible lending may have brought about a deflated economy that has hurt many millions of families worldwide, yet bankers continue to receive gargantuan bonuses and whilst the majority of politicians confessed to fiddling their expenses, many escaped meaningful punishment and remain in positions that afford them considerable influence. Ultimately, I doubt that we will every full understand Britain’s brief though appalling descent into anarchy but, in my opinion, commentators should pay less attention to single parents and give greater consideration to the irreverent behaviour of our so called ‘great and good’.