Brown, Cameron urged to work together to avert social breakdown

London, Sep 15 : Social order in Britain's inner-cities will collapse unless Prime Minister Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron bury their political differences and work together, a powerful alliance of MPs has warned.

The MPs, in a report to be published on Tuesday, paint an apocalyptic vision of worsening violent crime and family breakdown unless urgent steps are taken to halt an inevitable slide into delinquency for children from broken homes, The Telegraph reported.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, and former government Minister Graham Allen are demanding their party leaders support a nationwide extension of Early Intervention programmes, which are targeted at improving the life chances of deprived children ranging from newborn to three years old.

The programmes are intended to transform parenting skills and revitalise the up bringing of poor children on the country's worst council estates.

The report calls for a manifesto commitment from Brown and Cameron to provide sufficient funds for the Early Intervention programme which is being pioneered in Nottingham where Allen is a local MP.

Home Office research published in the summer suggested a third of all children are involved in anti-social behaviour but those who start as young as eight are far more likely to go on to become serious offenders.

The MPs report, published by the Centre for Social Justice - which is chaired by Duncan Smith - whose proposals for tax cuts for married couples to shift the balance of state support in favour of families is now Conservative policy.

The joint author is the Smith Institute the think-tank that, until a few weeks ago, was run by Wilf Stevenson who is now one of Gordon Brown's most trusted Downing Street advisers.

The Centre for Social Justice estimates the cost of social breakdown is 102 billion pounds a year and that seven out of 10 young offenders come from lone parent families.

ANI