IT WOULD be too cynical to suggest that political leaders are piling aboard the moral crusade launched with great dignity by Mrs Frances Lawrence, widow of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence, for reasons of electoral advantage with an election in view.

For all parties have already woken up - though years too late - to public concern over law and order and moral decline.

But no harm is done if extra drive is given to Mrs Lawrence's call for violence and brutality to be banished from our society. Millions of decent, ordinary people will support her call for change.

For they are sickened by the "me" culture from which stems so much of society's ills - not just widespread crime, but every taint from littered streets and vandalism to bad language on TV and everyday yobbism.

Yet, the grim truth that may make Mrs Lawrence's brave campaign a dream that is hard to realise is that our society has presided over its own decline into the moral mess in which it finds itself.

Yes, politicians and others in positions of authority can accept some of the blame.

They have stood by while increasing violence on TV and pornography on sale in every High Street have exerted a baleful influence.

They have legislated for greed and individualism.

And, as sleaze taints parliament and scandal stains the royal family, the opposite of good example has been given from the top.

But what of the examples down below - at society's grassroots, in the home?

Has not a culture of self-interest been allowed to develop while the basic instrument of mutual sharing, discipline and understanding - the family unit itself - been allowed to collapse?

Marriage is deemed no longer necessary; divorce is rampant; bastardy abounds without shame; the single parent is the icon of our age - and yet hands are wrung over what has gone wrong.

The manifesto of Mrs Lawrence tells us plainly what has.

And if she is able to provoke a turnaround, a societal wonder will have been wrought - at least 30 years after the seeds of the rottenness were sown and allowed to sprout with abandon.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.