I suspect the word Mr Blair meant to use is ‘deference’. This is a poor substitute for respect, a social ersatz frequently mistaken for the real thing by those who have not the eyes to see. Deference is about outward social compliance based, ultimately, on fear of punishment, and can manifest in people with no inward virtue.

Of course, deference can be enforced. To suppose that anyone – even a givernment – can compel respect, a self-cultivated inner humane virtue, is patently absurd.

Dealing with the “small crimes” as you refer to it should not just be about the eye-for-an-eye response implied by evictions and fines. Such things then just leach into other areas and so the displacement carries on and on. I don’t need to read a book to tell me this, I’m experiencing it at the moment. To attempt to eradicate such idiotic behaviour requires a change in attitude from those that govern and police us and a change in the way wrong-doers are dealt with. Do you really think a fine or eviction is going to change that person’s world-view? At worst it will make no difference (more money, more effort having been spent), at best it will leave those people without purpose and even more contempt for the world in which they live.

I just advocate more creativity in the solutions governments come up with. That doesn’t need new departments, just a different way of thinking. As for the so-callled ‘passive’ anti-socialites? Well, they can worry about the price of cheese in Asda. I don’t want to.

May your goats always yield good milk.

Imposing fines and evicting people is easier for the Government because they already have a system in place that allows them to do so. Implementing any of your suggestions means employing people or creating departments that don’t exist… more expense, more effort.

Giuliani showed in New York that an epidemic (in this case lack of respect and the resulting crime) can be reversed, can be “tipped”, by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment. (See Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”.) The “Broken Windows” theory of crime runs like this: if a window is broken and left un-repaired, people walking by will conclude that no-one cares and no-one is in charge. Soon more windows will be broken and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street sending a signal that anything goes.

So if you deal with the small crimes – the “quality of life” stuff (graffiti, public drunkenness, and yobs) – you’ll see a big change in crime figures and respect across the whole city. This is what happened in the mid-90s in Giuliani’s New York. It remains to be seen how Blair’s latest crusade will fair across an entire country. I suspect, sadly, that it’ll have little impact.