Minister in impassioned lament of self-image 'crisis' among young men seduced by 'bling' and crime

Middle-class parents who go out to work are helping fuel a crisis of confidence in young men and boys, a Labour minister warned.

David Lammy said an entire generation is growing up with inadequate male role models, unable to control their own emotions, and seeing crime as a short cut to wealth and power.

The dangerous crisis in masculine 'self-image' is not just confined to working-class estates, he added.

'There are also children in Middle Britain whose parents become strangers in a culture of long working hours,' he said.

'Boys, young men and grown men are struggling to find their place in society.'

Mr Lammy, a junior minister at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said far too many young men have 'unhealthy attitudes towards sex, money and violence'.

A 'bling culture' and a collapse of responsible fatherhood means some are being lured into gang and knife culture.

Echoing the title of U.S. rapper 50 Cent's smash album, he said youngsters are inhabiting a world of 'get rich or die trying'.

The minister said 59 per cent of black Caribbean children are looked after by a lone parent - but warned that children of all races and social backgrounds are suffering because they have no father in their lives.

His analysis flies in the face of years of Labour family and welfare policies that have been based on the notion that all types of families are just as good as each other, and that both mothers and fathers should be encouraged to go out to work.

Mr Lammy, Labour's most senior black MP and a friend of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, said many adolescents are growing up struggling to control their emotions.

Writing in this week's New Statesman magazine, he said: 'An inability to delay gratification - whether with food, alcohol, money or sex - is becoming a hallmark of our age.'

Many adolescent males, he added, carry knives or guns not because they hope to use them but because they are seen as symbols of status and power.

'The issue is one of self-image,' Mr Lammy said. 'In a warped world of gang culture, carrying a weapon has come to be associated with being a man.

'Rather than being seen as a risk, the knife confers "respect".'

He added: 'In society, the fetishisation of money and growth of consumerism add new pressures.

'In a bling culture, criminality easily becomes a short cut to symbols of wealth and power that will otherwise take years of hard work to achieve.

'Why, one boy asked me, was I worried about his grades at school when he might not live long enough to get a job?

'This is the world of "get rich or die trying".'

Mr Lammy called for the community to do more to provide male role models, suggesting firms should be encouraged to offer mentors to young men.

Lottery money should be used to create a national 'civic service', which should be compulsory, and youth services - such as music, drama or boxing clubs - should be expanded and access to apprenticeships increased.