When powerful men behave like stroppy toddlers, can we really blame kids for their bad behaviour?

Never mind bad parenting or posturing musicians – look at our so-called leaders

When rich and powerful men behave like stroppy toddlers, should we blame the young for posing with weapons and hanging out in gangs? There are new demands for schools to teach boys aged 12 and 13 anger management, as if teachers didn’t have enough to do imparting literacy and numeracy. Teachers sign up to teach, not to replace parents, but increasingly we seem to want school to be a home from home, a place where unruly pupils receive toilet training, acquire social skills and cope with basics like letting someone else go first without punching them.

A report from the Innovation Unit, a think tank which was formerly part of the Department of Education, contends that an 89 per cent rise in knife crime in Greater Manchester should be addressed through special lessons. Researchers say that violence is becoming “normal behaviour” for kids with a chaotic home life. They claim that media is partly responsible for a rise in exclusions and fights at school, because aggressive acts are easily shared and there’s an impetus to react immediately.

I agree that social media creates a hothouse atmosphere, where the notion of disrespect can escalate what used to be normal teenage sparring and trashing into a dangerous and even fatal situation. But everywhere you look, there’s been a decline in what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Never mind bad parenting or posturing musicians – look at our so-called leaders. The prime minister is a misogynist who crudely derided women wearing the veil, and whose grasp of the truth is highly flexible. A clown-like cartoon character, who sometimes seems to have strayed from a seasonal panto. A great role model for young men?

The Queen played host to a group of child-men this week, when she gave a reception for attendees of the Nato summit. Her polite conduct was in stark contrast to the oafish jousting amongst the heads of state. President Trump and President Macron had already publicly fallen out, with Trump calling the French leader “very, very nasty” for his comments describing Nato as “brain dead”. Like Boris Johnson, Trump will more or less say anything to a group of reporters, in order to make the top headlines of the day. He has selective memory loss when it suits, claiming this week that he “doesn’t know” Prince Andrew, although there’s plenty of photographic evidence to the contrary, and they have even played golf together. An American president who has spoken about grabbing women by the genitals is hardly a role model for young men either.

At Buckingham Palace, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was filmed talking to Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron sniggering and openly mocking Trump’s non-stop briefings to the press. When the footage became public, Trump described Trudeau as “two faced”, cancelling meetings, cutting his visit short and flying home. Behaviour more common in a child of 10.

This group seems to have reduced policymaking and diplomacy to what (before #MeToo) was called dick-on-table posturing. Are they really much better than the young gang members in Greater Manchester? Bone crunching handshakes, silly retorts and giggling innuendos are hardly the normal behaviour of senior business people and yet these men (and they are all men) were supposed to be brokering an alliance to counter international aggression and the threat of war. Would you hand a knife or a gun to any of them, let alone the opportunity to trigger the launch of a nuclear weapon?

Bad manners and oafishness have become the stock in trade of modern politics: before Trump had arrived back in the US, Joe Biden was using “snigger-gate” footage in his latest campaign ad, claiming “the whole world is laughing at him, world leaders cannot trust him”. As Trump faces impeachment and Macron a paralysing strike with violent demonstrations back home, they behave like badly behaved toddlers. Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher might have lacked small talk, and might have seemed brusque, but at least they had manners befitting high office.

Meanwhile, another spoilt child, Tesla founder Elon Musk, appeared in court this week, facing a charge of defamation brought by the British diver Vernon Unsworth. When 12 schoolboys and their football coach were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand last year, Unsworth was helping to lead the delicate rescue operation. Without being asked, Musk built a miniature submarine and sent it to the site, an act which Mr Unsworth described as a publicity stunt, suggesting that Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts”. The billionaire then tweeted 20 million followers describing Unsworth as “that pedo guy”. To win the case (and secure damages), Unsworth must prove the tweet was a falsehood which has caused him harm. In defence, Musk claimed it was a throwaway remark made when suffering from overwork. He seemed to justify his actions, saying Unsworth insulted him, “so I insulted him back”, adding “there are a lot of things I say, and not all of them have the same quality of thought”. After he had deleted the tweet, Musk posted: “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true”. Musk then refused to stay in court for Unsworth’s testimony – another gesture showing he has the emotional intelligence of a small child.

Whatever the outcome of this trial, it demonstrates that there’s no point in blaming parents for bad manners, they are just a fact of modern life. A recent survey found that people under 40 think it’s OK to swear in front of children and people you don’t know and a third would never give up their seat on a train to the elderly or a pregnant woman. We have got the leaders we deserve.