THE idea, being considered by the government, of paying state benefits to grandparents who look after the children of their unwed teenage daughters is, surely, a mad way of trying to get these single mums out to work.

For a start, why should taxpayers fork out to pay families for doing a job that is supposed to be theirs in any case?

But how the heck are teenage pregnancies to be discouraged if, when they are already a passport to numerous state handouts and housing for too many irresponsible young girls, they also become a ticket for their parents to get on the benefits gravy train as well?

And what encouragement is there in all of this for the decent family values the government says it favours? None, but it shows up the soppy non-judgmental social-worker-type instincts of New Labour most revealingly.

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