IF YOU were asked to produce the most painful torment, what devilish scheme would you devise? You might, if you were really evil, gather the close relations of people killed or maimed in a terrorist atrocity and show them hours of video footage of the carnage. That would be pretty Satanic, wouldn't it? But you could go one better. You could tell the distraught relatives that although there was a lot of evidence pointing to the identity of the terrorists, the culprits would never be arrested and locked up.

This is no piece of macabre fiction: it is exactly what the authorities have done at the inquest into the Omagh bombing. Why no arrests? In the interests of the "peace process" of course. This excuse is an obscenity. There is no lasting peace when the rule of law has been abandoned.

The Prime Minister likes us to know that he pushes the pram, changes the nappies and takes his turn at getting up in the night when Leo needs him. He knows that "family values" are always a popular theme with the voters.

It makes you wonder, then, why his Government's policies are so hostile to the family. The abolition of the married man's tax allowance, for example, and no mortgage tax relief. Well, New Labour ministers reply that the world has changed - "modernised", as they say - and that nowadays "family" doesn't mean what it did in the old days: a wedded couple and, as it might be, 2.4 children. In fact "family" has no clear meaning any more. The word can be used to describe an unmarried couple living together without children or a single woman living with a handful of children begotten by a series of "partners". But what sort of partner is it who enjoys making his girlfriend pregnant and then clears off and leaves her with the job of looking after the offspring? Often he has to be chased by the Child Support Agency and made to contribute towards the youngster's upbringing. So we live in a society in which marriage is not encouraged and with a tax and benefits system which favours unmarried mothers.

Does it matter? Yes it does, because that benefits system encourages young men to be promiscuous and feckless. This is bad for the children who grow up without a dad. These children tend to fail at school. It is bad also for the absent father who, encouraged by Government welfare policy to be irresponsible, often goes off to make another young woman pregnant only to leave her. Too many of our young men are being encouraged to become serial deserters by Government policy.

While we're on the subject of "lifestyle", it's odd how the bad old days keep coming back despite all the modernising tendencies of our brave new world. I remember my father telling me appalling stories about crippling diseases such as rickets, caused through vitamin deficiency. A thing of the past surely? Not so. A Department of Health study has shown that 20 per cent of children are not getting enough vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. They spend too much time watching television or playing computer games. Or else they're scared to go in the sun because of all the warnings about skin cancer.

A footnote to the controversy over the policing of the Notting Hill Carnival. Ian Blair (no, I'm not kidding), Acting Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, wrote to a newspaper this week to defend the force's tactics and methods. Against those critics who claimed that the police are demoralised, Mr Blair said: "Our internal staff surveys show no lasting crisis of confidence among police officers and civilian staff." He may be right. But he is profoundly wrong about one thing: this division between officers and "civilians" does not exist. All police officers in this country are civilians - unless of course there was a military coup while I was at the Test match.