The Wisdom of Vicky Pollard

"Teenage girls who plan to get pregnant do so to improve the quality of their lives, a report out today has found.

A study published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that girls as young as 13 see motherhood as preferable to working in a low-paid, dead-end job.

Far from the common assumption that teenage pregnancies result from irresponsibility or ignorance about contraception, some young girls actively choose to have a baby as a way to change their life and to gain independence and a new identity."

To 'gain independence', eh ? That sure lays to rest the hoary old right-wing myth about doing it to get a council flat.

Generally speaking pregnant teenagers should be a Good Thing. After all, the girls are at their fittest (in every sense) and should have the healthiest babies. The problem comes with Dad.

Back in those bad old days (aka 'the golden age that never existed') Dad wasn't necessarily too chuffed to hear the news. You'd have to get married or face the moral (and sometimes physical) sanctions of the community. Probably live with the in-laws until you got a place of your own. Work hard at the job until you could afford it.

The old disciplines of marriage, fatherhood and work have been wiped out by welfare, with the results you can see on White City, Matson or Hester's Way in leafy Gloucestershire any day of the week, any hour of the day or night.

Dad is now Gordon "lifting children out of poverty" Brown. "Job" ? what's that ? 27% of children in the UK have no father living with them. As Jill Kirby points out in the Sunday Times, hoodies need fathers more than they need hugs.