Parental guidance

His attack on feckless dads may initially earn nods of approval from many voters. It is, after all, clear that children who regularly spend time with both their parents, whether or not they all live under the same roof, have a better chance of growing up happy and well-adjusted. The reality is, however, that the Prime Minister has spoken out forcefully in an area where he has almost no capacity to make a difference.

Mr Cameron’s intervention, much like his call last year for the nation’s “wellbeing” to be measured, will generate some eye-catching headlines but do little to improve the lot of children whose parents are absent.

The reality is that those men who ignore their parental responsibilities belong to a section of society which will pay no heed to the musings of Westminster politicians, whether they are backbench MPs or the Prime Minister himself.

It is also misleading to compare absent fathers to drink drivers. Whatever the laziness or selfishness of men who ignore their children, they belong in a different class to people who risk, and often end, the lives of other people because they are too drunk to control their vehicle.

Mr Cameron is not the first political leader to call for a return to family values and he should remember the fate of his predecessors. Labour Ministers’ repeated calls over the last decade for fathers to act more responsibly produced no discernible changes while in the 1990s John Major’s infamous “back to basics” campaign, which called for the return of moral values, was washed away by a tidal wave of Conservative Party sleaze.

Many politicians like to inhabit the moral high-ground but Mr Cameron should concentrate on some other “basics” in 2011: restoring the economy to growth, deciding how to reform the NHS and making Parliamentary expenses something nearer to value for money for the taxpayer. Personal responsibility is important in every society but it cannot be controlled from the gilded corridors of 10 Downing Street.