MAIL COMMENT: Cameron puts family first...

Any meaningful examination of the social collapse that has cost us an astonishing £20billion confirms this analysis.

Courts full of criminals raised with no father figure... schools struggling to educate neglected children... one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe... The links are blindingly, depressingly obvious.

Conservative Leader David Cameron wants to re-instate family values and return to common-sense leadership

Labour, after 11 years in power, is fundamental to the problem. It has undermined the traditional family structure from day one, removing the married couples allowance and even giving some a perverse incentive to live apart.

But, rather than merely attacking the Government's plainly woeful record, Mr Cameron is at last beginning to set out how the Tories intend to tidy up this mess.

It is, he admits, uncomfortable territory for politicians who many believe should keep their 'noses out'.

But, as Mr Cameron says: 'Politicians are the ones who take taxpayers' money and write billions of pounds worth of cheques to deal with the costs of family breakdown.' So what does he suggest?

The reinstatement of tax breaks for marriage... an end to the couple penalty in the benefits system... no sex education in schools unless it includes relationship education...

This is surely simple common sense and, after a decade of anti-family dogma, instantly refreshing. Yes, much more flesh is needed on the bones. Clear costings and practical programmes must be set out.

But in committing his party to recognising the fundamental importance of the family in all aspects of policy making, he may well be taking another vital step on the road to power.

Another rubbish idea

One of the most basic rights of taxpayers is to have their household rubbish taken away, yet it is being steadily (and surreptitiously) eroded.

Locally, councils have either scrapped their weekly collections or use ridiculous edicts to do their dirty work - such as only emptying dustbins which can be lifted with two fingers.

Nationally, Ministers are toying with pay-as-you throw charging. Now an even more sinister proposal emerges.

When new homes are built - and three million are planned by 2020 - a strict limit will be imposed on how much each household can throw away. Anybody who exceeds it may not have their bin emptied.

The injustice will be immense, given that somebody living in a new house will be able to throw away less rubbish for their council tax than a neighbour living in an older property.

But what really annoys is the secrecy. Ministers spent £160,000 of taxpayers' money producing this barmy plan.

However, its contents were only exposed by a leak to the Tories. Why so? If it has environmental merit, Ministers should publicly argue their case. Changing the rules by stealth is wrong, dishonest... and guaranteed to build resentment.

Profits from misery

Who else but Britain's greedy supermarkets would have the cheek to sell strong lager for less than the price of bottled water in the very week they were accused of 'immorality' by MPs?

Yes, others must share the blame for Binge Britain, not least Labour for unleashing 24-hour drinking.

But selling alcohol at below cost price, simply to lure even more customers into their already busy stores, smacks of irresponsibility. It is time they stopped profiting from the misery of others.