Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.

Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives.

Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.

Jonathan Sacks Quotes