Dalrymple’s essay “Childhood’s End” from the Summer 2008 issue of City Journal is available online. The essay analyzes the effect of British welfare policy on childhood using the recent cases of Scarlett Keeling and Shannon Matthews as illustration.
“A system of perverse incentives in a culture of undiscriminating materialism, where the main freedom is freedom from legal, financial, ethical, or social consequences, makes childhood in Britain a torment both for many of those who live it and those who observe it. Yet the British government will do anything but address the problem…”