Looking at the front covers of today's press, featuring the faces of Stephen Lawrence's convicted killers, it's interesting to note the disparity in that of the Daily Express.
The fact is, the Editor has chosen to lead with the £1,400 average cost to British families (like mine, with two children) of recent tax and benefit changes.
It appears to be a fact that poverty can contribute to crime - possibly when you see others prospering through their birth-right rather than hard work? If that is the case and if that is part of the cause of this summer's riots, then maybe increasing poverty is not the brightest move.
I don't think anyone is citing poverty as the cause of Lawrence's awful murder and the vile racism behind it. It will be interesting to see - as the dust settles on the sentencing just announced of around 15 years for each of the two killers so far convicted - how far their backgrounds and values were affected by economics.
What I do know is that the steely determination of Stephen Lawrence's mother has changed our society for the better in the last 18 years. Would that we were all so principled and effective in being driven by those principles.
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