Quote of the day

"In 50 years, the sexual pendulum in Britain has swung from one extreme to the other, from an era in which nice girls didn't until after they were married, to one in which teenage abortions are drearily routine and the Government - like some deranged hippy mum - is wheedling 14-year-olds to please 'be responsible' and go on the Pill.

"The 1950s philosophy was pinned in place by shame, and a reluctance to discuss sex at all. There were dark whispers around unmarried mothers, and desperate panic in single women who fell pregnant. There were hushed-up backstreet abortions, and hurried adoptions, and the cruel denial of children born out of wedlock for decades to come.

"I have no desire to go back to those days, but it seems to me that young people now are being fed an even more complicated set of lies."

— Jenny McCartney, "Why our teenage girls get lost," in tomorrow's UK Telegraph