Make Britain polite - Respect Czar

Louise Casey said that society should be more ready to spend money to encourage good behaviour.

And she called on TV soap operas to portray a nicer side to life, rather than constantly showing the UK as a land of gloomy, argumentative, bed-hopping candidates for an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo).

Ms Casey is best known as the driving force behind the Asbo, and she insisted that it was an important part of the effort to restore a culture of respect.

But she acknowledged that Asbos could not be "the be-all and end-all" and that people also need positive encouragement to be well-mannered.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, she said people should all try to do a good deed a day: "It's important to help old ladies across the road. The greatest pleasure you can give yourself is to help somebody else.

"We need a greater sense that it's OK to be decent, you're not the nerd if you don't throw your rubbish on the floor - you're the person who's making Britain the country we all want to live in."

Ms Casey suggested that the rise in single-parent families and the decline in church-going and neighbourliness were all factors in falling levels of politeness.

But she stressed that boorish behaviour is not restricted to poor families on council estates, but is also a problem among the comfortably off.

"I recently drove down Highgate Hill (in north London) behind this brand new four-wheel drive," she recalled. "I watched the driver toss rubbish out of the window, I felt such anger. Right across society, whether they're rich or poor, people can behave really nastily."