British Prime Minister Tony Blair spent Tuesday promoting respect in British society by tackling problem parents and their unruly offspring -- and then admitted to smacking his older children. Blair's admission came during a BBC television face-the-public session on his "respect agenda" measures, intended to tackle anti-social behaviour -- a core theme of his third and final term in office.
The 52-year-old was quizzed by the presenter about his own parental discipline.
"Do you smack your kids? Did you?... Did it cause a problem?" he was asked.
Blair, who has four children aged five to 21, replied: "No, I think, funnily enough, I'm probably different with my youngest than I was with my older ones."
Misunderstanding his reply, the presenter said: "What, you do smack the younger one?"
Blair said: "No, no, it was actually the other way round but... I think, look, this smacking... I think everybody knows the difference between smacking a kid and abusing a child."
Blair's government stopped short of a total ban on smacking in England and Wales a year ago. Smacks that leave marks are punishable by up to five years in prison.
As part of the war on "yobbish" behaviour, problem families could be evicted from their homes in the event of "significant, persistent and serious nuisance" and lose their welfare handouts, under powers now used on drug dens.
Loutish families could be forced into rehabilitation courses and moved to a secure local authority "sin bin".
The proposals also include a National Parenting Academy where frustrated parents would be given help in dealing with out-of-control offspring.
Blair pledged that restoring respect in Britain would be at the heart of his agenda when his Labour Party was re-elected in May last year.
He said on the BBC programme: "If you're living in a street where you've got a family that's causing absolute hell for you and the other families in the street, you want something done about it.
"It's about saying: 'I'm sorry, if your family is out of control and causing hell for everybody else in the local community we cannot sit there and simply say nothing's going to happen to you."
Blair earlier blasted graffiti with a power hose on an estate in Swindon, southwest England.
The Daily Telegraph said Wednesday that the measures "will entirely fail to frighten the yobbish fraternity" while The Independent said Blair's "heroic rhetoric" on fighting yobs was little more than "gesture politics".
The Guardian said "Blair has launched a dangerous assault on a basic liberty" by plumbing new depths in its "disregard for civil rights".
He contrasted life in Britain with that experienced by his father growing up in a poor part of Glasgow in the 1930s, and his grandfather's generation before that.
"The one thing that would shock them, where they would say society has changed for the worse is in that loss of respect in local communities and on the street," he said.
