David Cameron called yesterday for everyone to become engaged in the fight against social breakdown –– and declared that parents should be shamed into bringing up their children properly.

In an impassioned speech written after watching the parents of Rhys Jones speak on television about their loss, the Conservative leader said that it was not up just to the Government to take responsibility for the state of the nation, but all people.

“What is required is simply asking how many more parents have to bury their children before we decide to choose a different path for our society,” he said.

Calling for a new “social covenant” between individuals and the State, Mr Cameron said sections of society needed to show responsibility. Parents who did not know where their children were and what they were up to at night should not only be helped to do their job properly, they should be shamed into it, he said.

Magazines that saw the glorification of “getting wasted” as a circulation booster, music companies that grew fat on the profits of exploiting black youth, film and video-game directors who pushed the boundaries of acceptable violence – all had a responsibility to change their ways.

Just as there was nothing inevitable about economic decline at the end of the 1970s, so there was nothing inevitable about social decline in the current decade, Mr Cameron argued.

Speaking to a military audience in Oxfordshire, he said that the bravery and sense of social responsibility shown by Rhys’s parents was “awe-inspiring”. He said: “What his parents said yesterday, when they spoke of their loss of their boy, of their child, and what he meant to them, was so powerful and moving.”

Social responsibility meant that there needed to be a national recognition that individuals had to play their part in creating a better society. Strengthening families and communities was the most important part of a three-dimensional approach to changing society, he said.

The Government had failed in creating a culture of respect and responsibility where poor behaviour was matched with rewards, schools were undermined and the tax and benefits system sent out signals that “undermine families, penalise commitment and reinforce family and social breakdown”.

Mr Cameron asked why such a remorseless increase in gang culture had taken place in Britain and why the availability of guns had become seemingly endless. “What has become of our society when we have this spate of children killing children?”

But politicians must “resolve not to fall back just into the usual response”, he said. He went on: “But in putting forward what I’ve called the three-dimensional approach – measures on criminal justice, measures on policing and measures to strengthen society – let us recognise that it is the last of these three – changing our society and, frankly, changing our culture – that matters the most and where change is so desperately needed.

“So today I say that we should ask not just what we expect from our Government in response to these dreadful crimes, but what do we expect from ourselves and from society?”

He said the social covenant was more powerful than words. It was a “national recognition that it is not just up to the Government to take responsibility for the state of our nation, it is up to all of us.

“To me this is what social responsibility is all about. Not just sitting back and saying that the Government must act, but all of us saying, ‘This is my country, my society, my responsibility, and I must play my part.’

“It means parents taking responsibility for bringing up children properly. It means schools playing their part in instilling discipline and good values.

“It means all of us recognising our obligations not just as parents but as neighbours, as members of a community and understanding that those obligations are as important as simply paying our taxes and obeying the law.

“It means understanding and acting on that age-old maxim that it takes a village to raise a child. It means retailers stopping the sale of alcohol to young teenagers. It means music companies, media companies, games manufacturers, not just thinking, ‘What is my social responsibility as a company in terms of the projects I support and the charities I back, good and important as they are’, but asking, ‘What is the effect of the music I produce, the games I market and the programmes I broadcast?’ ”

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has asked the Association of Chief Police Officers to review tactics used to tackle gun control. Ken Jones, the association’s president, who is to lead the month-long review, said last night that chief officers would be meeting communities affected by gun crime. He added: “The police need their help because they are part of the solution.”

Mr Jones said: “We must, all of us, now grip this problem and change things for the better. That will take parents, neighbours and communities as well as agencies like the Police Service, to face up to the challenge we have and make insecure neighbourhoods secure once more.”

Although Ms Smith has promised that the Government will consider compelling witnesses to gun crime to give evidence to the police and courts and make membership of a gang an “aggravating factor” in sentencing, a consensus appears to be emerging in Whitehall and the police that new legislation is not the answer.

Instead officials believe that the solution will come only through tackling some of the deep-rooted social problems of gang and gun culture in certain parts of the country.

Social responsibility

“What is required is simply asking how many more parents have to bury their children before we choose a different path . . .

“What has become of our society when we have this spate of children killing children? . . .We should ask not just what we expect from our Government in response to these dreadful crimes, but what do we expect from ourselves and from society? .

“It means all of us recognising our obligations not just as parents but as neighbours and understanding that those obligations are as important as simply paying our taxes and obeying the law. . . .

“It means understanding and acting on that age-old maxim that it takes a village to raise a child. . . .

Times Recommends

• Thalidomide is story of pain and neglect
• Mum’n’dad vote will decide the next election
• Socialite wife in a class of her own