SHARON has a tattoo of a dog with an eye patch on her shoulder and did not mince her words: “It’s a complete and utter waste of three million quid.” I was asking about the local impact of Sure Start, the government’s flagship programme to help families with young children.

She lives in Wythenshawe, Manchester, in one of the country’s most deprived wards. I was there on Friday with the inspirational United Estates of Wythenshawe project, listening to parents and residents as part of the research I have been doing into how we can give more support to families. I was given a litany of state failure: gangs with guns but police too thinly spread. Youth clubs closed and nothing for young people to do. And childcare provision through a tax credits system so complicated that many parents do not bother to use it.

It was the verdict on Sure Start that surprised me most. I’m a big fan of the thinking behind Sure Start: during the early years children from deprived backgrounds lose out most and it’s here that parents most need support. Dig a bit deeper, however, and Sure Start starts to look like a microcosm of the government’s broader failure. It is the right sort of idea in the right sort of area, but Labour’s approach has been completely wrong.

Sharon’s complaint was that money had been thrown at the problem and was now drying up; that the needs of local parents — for safe play areas, for example — had been ignored, and that by spending so much so quickly, particularly on staffing, Sure Start took valuable resources such as carers and therapists out of other local services.

In a nutshell, it was top-down big government knows best. But it’s not just Sure Start and it’s not just Wythenshawe. Labour’s top-down approach is causing disappointment and failure almost wherever you look.

Whatever Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s disagreements, they are united in one respect: their instinctive response to any political challenge is to pass a new law. For them, it’s nothing if it’s not state action. They don’t understand that if it’s only state action, then it really is nothing.

This goes to the heart of the difference between our parties. Tackling crime needs more than “get tough” measures and more than the competent administration of the Home Office — although that would be a start.

It needs a recognition that government cannot do it alone. Schools must play their part through standards of discipline. Popular culture must play its part by promoting positive values. Most of all, families have a crucial role to play. Supporting families and helping them to raise children can’t be achieved just through placing a state children’s centre in every community. We will work to improve Sure Start, not replace it, but above all we need a new approach to politics, new priorities and a change of culture.

For all children and most adults, our family is the most important thing in our lives. I love my job and I passionately want to have the chance, as prime minister, to help to improve people’s lives. But the fact is that whatever I do or don’t achieve in politics, nothing matters as much as my family. Nothing is tougher, or will give me greater satisfaction, than raising my children properly. It goes without saying that my children couldn’t care less whether I become prime minister or not. On Fathers’ Day we should remember the simple truth that a successful dad spends time with his children.

As well as thinking about how to raise Britain’s GDP, we should focus on how to raise our level of GWB — general wellbeing. This week I’ll be setting out a second component: support for families.

We need to do more to help families with young children make ends meet and to meet their childcare needs. We have to examine new ways of supporting the emotional relationships at the heart of family life: between parents and their children (particularly in the early years), and between couples themselves. And we must think creatively about how we help parents to fulfil the aspirations they have for their children.

Acknowledging and celebrating parenthood as a key determinant of a healthy society and offering practical solutions to the challenges that families face are not only important goals in themselves: they are essential in tackling crime and antisocial behaviour.

The Conservative party is developing a clear alternative: trust, shared responsibility and long-term thinking instead of the top-down incompetence, waste and short-termism of this Labour government.

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