Lad mags 'link to family breakdown'

Senior shadow cabinet member Michael Gove said titles such as Zoo and Nuts reinforced a "shallow approach" to women, and linked them to a rise in feckless fatherhood and family breakdown.

In a high-profile speech on family and society, Mr Gove also accused Gordon Brown of undermining communities through an obsession with state control.

Mr Gove said the Tories saw stable families as a "route to greater equality and opportunity" and pledged to support them through the tax system.

He told the Institute for Public Policy Research in London: "Helping adults commit and stay committed not only opens the door to a depth of emotional enrichment which a series of shallow and hedonistic encounters can never generate, it also provides the best possible start in life for children."

The drive to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies should be focussed on making young men face up to their responsibilities, he said, beginning with lads' mags.

"I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern men's magazines targeted at younger males.

"Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available. The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude.

"The contrast with the work done by women's magazines, and their publishers, to address their readers in a mature and responsible fashion, is striking.

"We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men, what they think they're doing. The relationship between these titles and their readers is a relationship in which the rest of us have an interest."