THERE IS an argument going on about our contemporary “yobs”, to whom Tony Blair wishes to teach respect. Are they, in fact, any worse than the misbehaving adolescents of previous generations?

The youthful author John Harris argues not: our yobs are no worse than teddy boys or juvenile delinquents of previous eras, over whom there was similar bourgeois anxiety.

It may be that, in individual cases, yobs today are no worse than their antecedents. Indeed, older people will often recall wild incidents of their own youth when they ran amok and challenged authority and decorum.

But the difference between the situation now and the misbehaviour of past times is that, previously, bad conduct was corrected. Not so, now.

A small, but telling example: I see a surly adolescent with his filthy trainers resting upon the seat opposite him on a train. Next to him, a notice forbidding feet on seats. Do I risk correcting him, only to be told: “Eff off, you stupid old cow” (or worse)? Presently, a ticket inspector passes through the train. She inspects tickets, but neither does she correct the erring lad.

So in this small but vexing misdemeanour, he is uncorrected, and gets away with it. And no doubt he will continue in his loutish ways, perhaps graduating to ever greater acts of yobbishness.

In previous times naughty conduct also occurred: but the miscreant was scolded, and usually penalised. He “got into trouble”. His parents were informed, generally to their mortification. He was reported to his teachers and given a humiliating carpeting, maybe even physically chastised. The threat of such consequences often corrected the conduct.

It is as natural for the growing adolescent to test the boundaries of the acceptable as it is for a tiger cub to fight his siblings: but serious yobbishness develops when there are no boundaries. And that is our problem; the lack of boundaries; the lack of deterrents; the lack of penalties.

It is not that the yobs are different from before — but that the law-abiding adult population will no longer take the responsibility to correct and reprimand bad behaviour. We older people are often cowardly about facing a torrent of verbal abuse if we seek to correct or reprimand. But whatever is not corrected is perpetuated, emboldened and grows worse.