This is a Thinking Aloud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much,

much more about thinking aloud. Go to our website at BBC.co.uk.

Hello. My mother used to warn me about becoming mixed up with school friends who came from what she called

problem families. But who are these problem families and where did they live?

Well, Mother would have answered in one word,

Bootle.

Yep, bootle.

From the perspective of our lower middle class semi, five miles up the road in Crosby,

was for her synonymous with heavy drinking street fighting

sentimental religiosity excessively large families persistent criminality and well general

skiving I remember how surprised I was by the reality. Yes back

then there was a good deal of drinking in Bhutel and a sizable chunk of

sentimental religiosity and not a little nicking from the local docks, but there was also a commitment to work and to family and to friends that would have astonished my anxious mother.

That disjunction came to mind when on August the 9th this year I heard

this BBC news item. Five years ago tonight cities and towns across the country were

racked by violence and looting. The government's

headline response to the rights that hit streets across Britain like the

one behind me here in Salford was the so-called Troubled Families program. The idea was they would spend

around 400 million pounds assisting around 120,000 families with difficulties.

Then this was extended. Eventually a further 400,000 families will be helped

at a cost of another 900 million pounds. This whole scheme will eventually cost 1.3 billion

pounds and help half a million families. But there's one problem.

...