Politics
Can we create space for our children to be safe and free?
Published 03 April 2008
Hard on the heels of a spate of reports suggesting that British children are living through a uniquely awful era in which they are bullied by peers, spend little quality time with parents and are unlikely to live near any safe recreational facilities, along come counter-reports and commentaries saying that, in fact, British children are better off, more sociable and cleverer than ever before. So is this the best of times or the worst for British children?
The "death of childhood" position was well represented by a Time article in the past week entitled "Britain's mean streets". This painted a lurid picture of boys and girls, "fuelled by cheap booze", who "casually pick fights, have sex and keep the emergency services fully occupied". Alarming statistics backed up the thesis. British teenagers were more likely than their European counterparts to fight, try drugs, be sexually active and get drunk.
Acknowledging this terrible reputation, the Children's Commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green, is due to address the Institute for Public Policy Research on 7 April on "Unhappy Children", discussing whether Britain really is the worst place to grow up in the developed world, as a much-quoted Unicef report claimed last year.
The counterposition was well argued by the journalist Fran Abrams in the Observer last weekend. Author of a book on teenagers, she drew on her interviews with young people to make the point that on many counts - from childhood safety to crime to educational achievement - British teenagers are probably doing better than in any previous generation.
Abrams's more optimistic picture is, happily, closer to the daily experience of most parents and children. As Darcus Howe points out on page 23, shocking though it is to hear of seemingly casual killings of young black adolescents in London, very, very few teenagers in London are, in fact, involved in knife fights and gunfights with their peers. There is not, as some suggest, widespread organised gang warfare; the incidents most often turn out to be isolated, if tragic. Howe is right, too, to remind us that the collective protests and demonstrations of his younger days - so agonised over by commentators at the time - might, in retrospect, be seen as a better outlet for adolescent anger than the small-scale violent flare-ups of today.
How, though, does the government persuade parents that the "mean streets" beyond their doors are not full of feral children waiting to corrupt their offspring? And how does it provide places where children both feel safe and will be safe?
An initiative from the children's minister provides one answer. "myplace", a £190m programme of play spaces, will provide grants of up to £5m to private and public sector bodies for provision of "world-class youth facilities". Announcing it on 3 April, Beverley Hughes said: "Across the country, young people are calling for more great places to go . . . that offer a real alternative to the 'street-corner' culture."
It is, without doubt, something to celebrate. But the government should also aim, surely, not to eradicate "street-corner" culture, but rather to make teenage spaces part of the community. The age at which children have "independent mobility" - go out by themselves - is getting higher each year, according to Play England, part of the National Children's Bureau. Streets, housing estates, shopping precincts are dangerous partly because too few young people use them.
Projects such as Play England argue that we need a fundamental review of the way in which planners everywhere cater for children. The Children Act places a duty on local authorities to consider the needs of children. This should become an explicit obligation on authorities to consider their needs in all major planning and transport decisions, believes Play England.
The responsibility to provide safe play space for children was well expressed by Lloyd George in a message to the National Playing Fields Association at its founding in 1925: "The right to play is a child's first claim on the community . . . No community can infringe that right without doing deep and enduring harm to the minds and bodies of its citizens."
Those tiddly om-pom Proms
Unfurl your Union Jacks: this week brings the launch of the programme for this year's Proms. The BBC's music festival has taken an unfair ribbing recently from the culture minister, Margaret Hodge, who criticised it for failing to attract a sufficiently "representative" audience. Had Hodge ever attended a Prom? Surely she would have noticed that the festival is a model of accessibility, making world-class classical music available every night for as little as £5 per ticket.
Prommers will be awaiting this year's programme with interest. The 2007 season was a resounding success, with a concert by Venezuela's Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra attracting particular acclaim. This year a new director, the Radio 3 controller Roger Wright, has taken over from Nicholas Kenyon, who ran the festival for 12 years.
Wright, a thoroughbred BBC man, seems unlikely to stray too far from traditional formulas - although Hodge might be pleased to note that he loves world music, so the line-up is likely to become increasingly diverse. The big question, however, is whether he will revamp the Last Night of the Proms. The Last Night has become a millstone around the festival's neck: no matter how progressive the rest of the programming, it is forever associated with flag-waving patriotism. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly a "much-loved British institution". Will Wright have the courage to ditch Elgar for something more, dare we say it, interesting?
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