WHY do parents persist in parking on double yellow lines outside schools, sitting on their fat backsides, smugly watching their children waddle the few yards to the gates?

Why do motorists still steer with one hand, holding mobile phones to their ears as they roar up to roundabouts, and to hell with everyone else?

Why do chubby-fingered oafs chuck their fast-food detritus over our increasingly dirty streets?

Why do drivers, foglights glaring, tailgate on the M3, not bother to indicate and zoom through residential streets, slowing only for the highly-visible (and perhaps increasingly counter-productive) speed cameras? Why do some young people spit, swear and glare so much? Why do they vandalise and drop litter?

Why do school-age children carry knives and increasingly use them to stab (and sometimes kill) each other?

Because they can, that's why.

When the police collar only a quarter of villains (those that are easier to catch, at that) and even the Home Secretary admits she doesn't feel safe to go out after dark, you know things could perhaps be better.

It seems crime is fast becoming almost a career option in some parts, and certain areas are off-limits, even to the supposed law-enforcers.

Traditional political wisdom states that the pound in our pocket is what matters: "It's the economy, stupid." But is that really the case any more?

All those gleaming apartment blocks and fancy American-style coffee shops can't disguise the way we're heading. Money isn't everything; quality of life is.

I'm not suggesting the Sun newspaper is the voice of reason - nor is disaffected youth anything new - but yesterday's front page lamenting the "downward spiral of Britain" will have struck a mighty chord.

When teenagers can kick decent men like father-of-three Garry Newlove to death, we must surely expect more from Westminster than yet more meaningless soundbites about crackdowns.

We're not fooled anymore by promises - that we know are made only to be broken - to "do something".

We don't even need new laws: there are plenty already in place.

What we really want is the will to enforce those laws - and a profound shift in attitude in a significant section of society that seems on the verge of tipping over into an abyss of greed and aggression.