Escape from gangland

The murder of a teenager on Boxing Day, stabbed during a brawl over a pair of trainers in Oxford Street, offers another horrifying glimpse of the culture of violence being incubated in our sink estates. Police have not yet confirmed if this was another gang killing, but it seems to fit a sickening pattern. There was Negus McClean, killed in April after he confronted a gang who tried to steal his brother’s mobile phone. Then Nicholas Pearton, stabbed to death in a shop doorway in May by a group of schoolboys. At each outrage politicians denounce criminality and the police promise crackdowns. Then things carry on as before.

It’s unclear at what point children killing children became part of British national life. But this social decay ought to be seen as the most urgent problem facing the country, more so than the need to balance the budget. Prosperity will hardly heal our society, given how much of the rot set in during what were supposedly boom years.