Cause and effect

Updated:

For years, the Mail has argued against the Left's obsession with ever-more ubiquitous sex education for ever-younger children - and handing out free condoms and morning-after pills - as an answer to the misery of teenage pregnancy.

Now it emerges ministers have had to abandon their £5.9million Young People's Development Programme, modelled on a U.S. scheme to promote contraception.

And why? Surprise, surprise! A devastating study of the three-year pilot finds that teenagers who attended the course were 'significantly' more likely to fall pregnant than a similar group who were spared intervention.

We're told this was 'despite' the fact those in the YPDP group received intensive sex education and free condoms.

'Despite' - or 'because of'? Yes, of course we need sensible sex education.

But it must be put in the context of teaching young people about self-respect, restraint - and the terrible damage to immature bodies and minds of having sex before they can cope with the consequences.