Nanny state road

With sentences like this, Malta is destined to go down “nanny state road”, writes Ian Waugh in London for TMI:

“I am so depressed about the future”. That’s my secret thought that seems to whirl endlessly around like an out-of-control spinning wheel. It clunks and rattles my brain on an almost hourly basis while I’m sitting here at my desk in London...Bad anti-social behaviour is never out of the news. Violent crime is raging. We are living on tender hooks. We’d rather walk on the other side of the street than risk the fear of coming in close contact. Yes! We are frightened of our own youth. They have taken on a self-imposed alienation with their hoods, their walk, their language, their interaction and their whole attitude – this is not culture, this is hell.

No, not beloved Malta – this is today’s UK...Great Britain has become that dark side of town – a ghetto of fear on one side and gross anti-social behaviour on the other. Bullying has reached a record, violent crime is at an unacceptable level, drug and alcohol abuse out of control, debt levels are ragingly high. There are whole areas of inner cities that are practically “no-go zones” after dark. But this gloomy scenario isn’t just being played out in good old Blighty.

Now on the tiny islands of Malta the newspapers and online reports are full of this festering, creeping disease. From drugs, to violence, to bullying. The difference between the UK hell and the current situation in Malta is simple. Immediate tough action is required to nip this in the bud before the germ becomes a full ugly, nasty, poisonous flower.

I read Francesca Vella’s article, Suspended sentence for teenage bullies (TMID, 9 December):“Five students were yesterday jailed for one month, suspended for a year, after they pleaded guilty to bullying a fellow student at the MCAST college in Corradino. Appearing before Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna, the boys, who cannot be named as they are still minors, were charged with bullying another boy by assaulting, threatening and pushing him to the ground with the intent of hurting him at the MCAST college in Corradino on 7 December and the preceding four months”.

A suspended sentence? With due respect to the learned magistrate, surely with sentences like this Malta is destined to go down “nanny state road” (we’ll meet you at the junction!). Nations live and survive by reputation. We are living the hell in the UK. Malta is small and compact enough to take short, sharp, seemingly painful action now. By taking this course, the jewel that we love and cherish in the Mediterranean will not dissolve into the crisis-ridden disaster that is emerging as Britain’s youth and the future of a once fearless nation.