War on the establishment starts at home

No 10 disrupters must tackle our metro elite’s biggest policy phobia: the decline of family values

Acouple of weeks ago, a member of the Royal family inadvertently broke a taboo. I don’t mean the Earl of Snowdon, who announced that he was divorcing his wife of 26 years. The Queen’s nephew is one of a succession of royals to split from their spouse. No, the iconoclast among the Windsors is the Duchess of Cambridge, who spoke movingly about her struggle to be a perfect parent. In so doing, she was venturing into territory where few politicians dare to tread.

Family may be the rock upon which society is built, but politicians fear it as a slippery boulder that risks crushing those who approach it. Parenting, couples’ relationships, children in care, and above all the M (for marriage) word: touch on these issues when drafting public policy and you will stand accused of being judgmental. A bias in favour of stable families can land you in trouble on Twitter and on the airwaves, where a loud and influential lobby megaphones a materialist explanation for every problem – mothers do not suffer from loneliness but from austerity; children do not suffer from chaotic families but from the closure of Sure Start centres; young people join gangs not because they lack male role models but to make money.

Too many politicians have started to believe that someone on benefits or a zero-hour contract will never buy the pitch that relationships are more important than money. They are wrong. When asked for the number one difficulty they faced, one in three new mothers said loneliness. When the Centre for Social Justice recently asked what was important to them, young people between 14 and 17 said a good relationship was as important as a job. Eight in 10 teenagers (aged 15-17) polled by Yougov in 2018 said they wanted to get married.

It would seem that the Duchess, for all her privilege, is far more in tune with ordinary people than the politicians are. Instead of being derided as “traditionalist” or “oldfashioned”, a family that offers a stable and nourishing environment is a 21st-century goal for young and older.

Supporting this intimate nexus of relationships will prove popular for the Government. Failure to do so risks perpetuating a slew of alarming trends. The number of children arriving at reception classes unable to play with others, sit still or pay attention has soared to one in three. The Children’s Commissioner estimates that at least 27,000 children aged 10 to 15 have joined gangs. Meanwhile, the incidence of mental health problems among young people is soaring. More than 75,000 children are in care and councils have over 68,000 more on the “at risk” register, meaning they need some form of social services.

The cost of this crisis is huge in terms of wasted potential and the dent in our budget. Are we to stand idly by? That would make no sense, especially for a Government with a majority such as this one. A handful of interventions could support families and stop worrying trends in their track. Parenting classes and discussion groups can boost parents’ confidence and reduce their loneliness. Couple support can improve communications between parents, strengthening family ties. Children’s and family hubs, endorsed by dozens of Conservative MPS at a recent meeting organised by backbenchers, can help engage parents who so often feel suspicious of schools and social services. And a marriage allowance (£485 million of expenditure this year), which the backbench Social Justice Caucus is trying to protect from the Chancellor’s leaked plans for abolition, would show that politicians, like most people, understand that marriage matters.

I am hoping that the tide is turning. Even before the Duchess’s podcast interview with Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum, Happy Baby blog, I noticed that the one institution Dominic Cummings has not condemned for destruction was the family; and, indeed, that the consigliere in No 10 was quoting

PJ Masks, the popular children’s cartoons, with the authority of someone who spends a lot of time with his children. The iconoclast of Downing Street, together with the Duchess of Cambridge, could be the dream team to take on the anti-family establishment.