Today...

...in the Daily Telegraph, there is a description of visiting a cinema where a pack of twelve year-olds ran riot for the duration of the film. No one dared to reprove them, much less to take any firm action. The audience cowered through the film - which they could not hear for the shrieking and shouting - and then cowered out. Cinema staff were cowed into submission too. The children ran shouting and yelling into the street to enjoy more bullying and intimidation, shrieking with power.

The solution, according to the columnist? That people should ask for their money back on such occasions.

Hopeless. The issue at stake here - and it really is at stake, it involves our whole future - is whether or not we have the courage to claim back the right to raise the young. Today, Britain has gross and ludicrous laws (created by Euro-bureaucrats, one assumes, but with the full force of legality in our country) which ensure that anyone who challenges, reproves or in any way moves to restrain a vicious child can be arrested and imprisoned, facing serious charges of assaut. Children know this and yell "I'll get the p'leece on yer!" when challenged in any way. So everyone is frightened of children - some of whom of course now carry knives, and some of whom are likely to be drunk.

Restoring the natural right of grown-ups to protect life and property when terrorised by children won't make everything better in Britain, but it will enable us to create a sense of order in which solutions to our myriad of other problems can be found.