Thugs or heroes?

David Cameron was having a pop at Brown in PMQs and said that Labour had demonised an entire generation of young people, or words to that effect.  My experience of working with both Labour and the Conservatives on their policy toward young people is that there is little to choose between the parties on ths issue.  Certain sections of the press, however, ("Is this Britain's youngest ever thug?" type headlines) have done their best to scapegoat young people, usually whilst running a picture of a teenager with her top off in the same edition.  They then appear to be desperate to get misty-eyed over 'children of courage' and those hapless young people who have celebrity parents.   What we want our young people to be is, to a certain extent, up to the rest of us and the fact that they are alternately stamped as thugs and heroes in the national press expresses the general confusion there is around young people in Britain.