HOW encouraging to see the Government take an interest in what young people are wearing.

Never mind all those hoodies, how about passing an edict banning baggy jeans that drag along the ground, hoovering up who knows what? Or T-shirts covered in grass and mud stains. Or skater trainers the size of small nautical craft that could cross the Atlantic powered only by their own smell.

And why stop with children?

If the Government wishes to turn into the fashion police, let's banish loud check sports jackets, people who wear denim jackets and jeans (a la Status Quo circa 1066), blubber-stomached women exposing their too-ample midriffs and, while we are at it, middle-aged men who are rarely out of jeans and T-shirts.

Except, of course, it is none of the Government's business what anyone wears.

We should all be free to make our own fashion faux pas without interference from New Labour. Besides, Tony Blair has committed a few fashion howlers in his time, once sporting a brand favoured by the yobs he so loves to berate.

The latest brouhaha came about after the Prime Minister lent his support to the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, which has banned hoodies and baseball caps. Such items are considered antisocial because they obscure the face.

It is one thing for a shopping centre to restrict what people can wear, although it seems a bit rich to me - especially because some shops in the centre apparently sell hoodies. It is something else for a prime minister to jump on to the bandwagon.

That's the trouble with this prime minister - he can't see a bandwagon roll by without wanting to jump on it and deliver a sermon. This one was set rolling by a combination of over-heated media coverage, political opportunism and that old problem of what's become of young people.

As is usually the case in this country, everything has been pressure-cooked beyond sense until the issue has been boiled pink.

Incidentally, the Daily Express newspaper, a bit of a leaky old pressure cooker, is apparently claiming its "crusade" to rid Britain of hoodies prompted Bluewater's ban. When I read that I wanted to go straight out and buy one of these now-hated garments.

I'm probably too old for hoodies, although a bit of warmth for the top of the head wouldn't go amiss. Yet it would not be surprising for a middle-aged man to wear a hoodie, which offers an interesting side-shoot to this issue.

It has long been difficult, if not impossible, to identify a generation by what it wears. The barriers came down years ago, leaving most people of all ages dressing in variations on casual sports or leisure wear.

One consequence of this has been that it is harder for young people to mark themselves out as different. In the past the youth wardrobe has contained such items as teddy boy winklepickers, Hell's Angels studded jackets, hotpants, loon pants (as I blush to recall), punk-ripped jeans and jackets with the sleeves rolled up (not guilty on that count).

None of these has been any better or worse that hoodies, which are only sweatshirts with a hood.

So why all the fuss now?

Part of the reason is that hoodies can be menacing, because they conceal the face and can be worn by those up to no good. Yet this is mainly a problem because we depend on CCTV cameras to spy from a distance rather than up-close police officers.

There is a greater wrong in all this, however, and one we seem all too eager to repeat these days.

Once again we risk demonising teenagers by overreacting to any behaviour by young people, creating the depressing stereotype that all young people are trouble. Most of them aren't at all - they are just young.

So Tony Blair, who is once again banging on about antisocial behaviour, should remember respect cuts both ways.

We should respect our young people, most of whom are no different than we were, instead of creating another blind moral panic.

Updated: 09:28 Thursday, May 19, 2005