Greed of businesses and individuals led to prices being forced down – that’s market forces at work – so we import more manufactured goods as it’s cheaper to make them in China and other eastern nations. Added to that, we employ too many people from overseas such as eastern Europe because they cost less.

What’s that got to do with gangs of youths?

They know from an early age there’s not much of a future for them so they disengage completely. This is because they get encouraged to do well at school with a view to going to university and thence professional life. The problem is a significant number of people are not interested in this route but there are few other opportunities. There used to be apprenticeships but they are no more, there are no jobs for apprentices to go to anyway – there’s hardly any manufacturers! Anyway, these kids can get up to £200 a day running for drug dealers. Bloody hell! That’s more than I earn in honest toil.

So what do we do? Prosecute more of them, give them bigger fines and more custodial sentences? Hardly going to work is it? Government has introduced more than 3000 new laws and that’s just New Labour but there are not enough policemen to enforce them. Probably just as well because the courts couldn’t cope with all the prosecutions and there’s nowhere to imprison them. I’ve skipped the fines part as there’s no-one to enforce payment of fines so there’s no point even thinking about that route.

What do we do? Actually, we send working parties off on jollies to see how other countries deal with the problem. Pathetic. Anyone thought about asking the gangs themselves? You’d probably find out pretty quick that they feel betrayed by society with no hope of ever getting involved and crime being their only option.

This is all because we can’t provide a fair society with opportunities for all and fair returns. How can someone be worth £2,500 per hour when playing football and £6.50 per hour when serving in a shop?

We usually get what we deserve in life and in my opinion we certainly deserve our ‘feral gangs’.