No doubt readers will have been appalled by the front page photo (The Argus, June 9) which showed two thugs on a bus threatening to stab a teenager.

The perpetrators should be growing accustomed to media reports of their crimes: Elderly people beaten up, children shot with air rifles, drug abuse, violence in the playground and on the streets - the list is endless.

It could be they are also accustomed to hearing that someone is going to do something about them.

But has anyone ever stopped to consider how we reached this situation?

Little progress will be achieved if we do not get to the root of the problem and, where necessary, admit our mistakes.

Many of today's problems are of our own making - by having failed to challenge policy-makers and letting ourselves become the victims of academics and ideologues.

For example, it is reported Baroness Warnock who advocated all children, however mentally or physically disabled they might be, should be taught in mainstream schools. She now admits, "a bright idea in the Seventies isn't working". In the meantime, thousands of children and teachers have suffered from this flawed legacy.

Many aspects of our lives are governed by eminent and influential policy-makers, such as Baroness Warnock, who is seen as a pillar of the liberal education establishment.

But should we rely on academics who often seem to live in a world of their own and whose views are often subject to change?

As author of the 1884 Warnock Report, which shaped UK fertility laws, she supported a ban on human cloning and, in 1994, she was on the House of Lords' committee which unanimously opposed legalising euthanasia.

Today, her support for euthanasia far exceeds the norm and she now accepts selective cloning.

Where does that leave us and does it matter that elitist policy-makers continue to meddle in our affairs? The record of our policy-makers leaves a lot to be desired. Our education system has been subjected to constant change for years and we are now lowering standards to try and conceal its deficiencies.

Teachers are not supported in instilling much-needed discipline.

Traditional family values are actively discouraged and parents are regularly excluded from matters which bear upon the upbringing of their children.

The courts are weak in handling offenders, ridiculous strategies in relation to drug use and sex education have been introduced and the excesses of human rights are destroying the fabric of our society.

Is it any wonder undisciplined youths, many of whose parents lack parental skills, terrorise society? Our leaders have been getting it wrong and we need to make some radical changes.

Instead of politicians strutting around trying to convince us everything is under control and spending millions of pounds cleaning up their own mess, they should be reviewing their own records and seeking to implement commonsense strategies devoid of political ideology and without the fickle meddling of elitist policy-makers.

-Neil Kelly, Tredcroft Road, Hove