Young mums fume at Blair plan to tackle tearaways

LONDON, Sep 4 (Reuters) Young, single mothers in London are fuming at comments by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that their children run a high risk of turning into delinquents without help from the state.

It is unfair, they argue, to blacklist a child or even an unborn baby just because his or her parents are unwed teenagers rather than a well-to-do married couple.

A welfare expert agreed, saying that the remarks by Blair, who this week embarks on a regional tour to tackle ''social exclusion'', were probably made without proper consideration.

The prime minister said on Thursday that the government should intervene early -- possibly even before birth -- to stop the children of problem families growing up into troublemakers.

He singled out unmarried, teenage mothers who were not in a stable relationship as his prime target.

Victoria Clarke, 23, who lives in a local authority flat in southeast London, fell pregnant with her first baby when she was 17 and is expecting her third child in November.

Unmarried but in a long-term relationship with the father of her children, she ridiculed Blair's ideas.

''Tony Blair is talking rubbish. We have got more than enough experience to bring up our children properly,'' Clarke said, as she pushed Megan, aged five, and two-year-old Ronnie in a buggy.

''Some people have a good background and still grow up to take drugs,'' she said, emphasising that she tried to instil good values into her young family.

IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT PRIVILEGE Her friend, Danielle Richards, also 23 and from southeast London, agreed. Richards -- like her mother before her -- became pregnant with her first child at 16 and now has two healthy girls with her long-term boyfriend.

''I think Tony Blair should try to look at himself. His own son got into trouble for drinking alcohol,'' she told Reuters.

Richards was referring to an incident in 2000 when the prime minister's oldest son, Euan, then aged 16, was arrested after a night of under-age drinking in London's West End.

''It is not all about coming from a privileged background,'' she said. ''Sometimes, the tougher your upbringing the more you want your own kids to succeed.'' A few hundred metres from where the two women were talking lies the sprawling Aylesbury Estate, home to some 8,000 people, many from deprived backgrounds and broken homes who would fall under the category of Blair's ''dysfunctional'' families.

In his BBC interview, Blair suggested teenage mothers could be required to accept state aid with bringing up their children and even face sanctions if they refused.

Cathie MacIver, health and education coordinator for Aylesbury New Deal for Communities (NDC), a government-sponsored programme to rejuvenate the Aylesbury Estate, disagreed with Blair's approach.

''I do feel that he may have made his remarks in a moment when he wasn't considering quite what he was saying because the message he sends out is somewhat shocking,'' MacIver said.

''Far from speaking in a negative way about our unmarried teenage mums we all ought to be taking a much more supportive line.'' The NDC runs a number of projects in the community to promote better health, welfare and education, said MacIver.

Groups of young mothers with their children, for example, meet each week to learn how to cook simple nutritious meals.

Reuters DH GC0410