In defence of the blanket media coverage this is merely the tip of the iceberg. We all know that the kids on estates will burn cars and houses for the giggles. But so long as it stayed in housing estates the political classes didn't give a ****. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids each year are hustled through their mandatory education and straight onto the dole each year.
It's a criminal waste of human potential, and it feeds crime like a stoker shovelling coal onto a furnace.
The problem is that those who naturally favour solving the problem don't like the solution. Kids who come from violent and confused, ill-disciplined families, escape through a degree of violence, order and discipline. The Army turns thousands of scallies into hard working professionals every year. By which I don't mean we should use the Army because I don't think people should be drafted into a killing trade. But I do think that we need schools empowered to administer the tough love of proper control, combined with real and intensive pastoral care.