I PICKED up a newspaper the other day of the sort usually best avoided. Normally I don't do this because of all the opinions.

This particular newspaper - for argument's sake, let's call it the Daily Express - often contains views of extreme toxicity and general battiness. It is true that one person's deeply held belief is another's arrant nonsense - but, really, have you ever read any of this rubbish?

In a leading article about "reclaiming our streets", the leader writer reached a lid-blowing moment when offering the opinion that: "The social fabric on many housing estates has gone to rack and ruin. Fathers are absent and often unknown, while immature, inept mothers are rearing a generation of savages, funded by generous State benefits."

Furious, over-blown stuff - sparked by a suggestion from the new Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips that muggers who do not physically harm their victims need not go to jail, but could instead face a Community Service Order.

This is a good topic, especially as Justice Lord Phillips does stretch the bounds of what most people would see as sensible. Yet the newspaper's reaction was madly overstated.

Nowadays there is a market in outrage and newspapers such as the Express and the Daily Mail are hardened dealers in this particular drug. If a fuss can be kicked up about anything, it will be animated in a furious instant.

I thought about this in light of what the new Archbishop of York said last week. Dr John Sentamu caused a stir with his observations about celebrating Englishness. I am pride-neutral on being English - neither puffed up nor ashamed. A little pride seems fine, I suppose, but too much can go to the national head.

But here is something we should feel ashamed about: our willingness to see the bad in everything, to glory in the awfulness of others and to worry that we are all going to hell in a handcart, to dust off the sort of expression favoured by the mustier leader writers.

It is tempting to believe the world has gone bad, that everything is worse than it was. People are always saying this, muttering "it wasn't like that in my day".

Well, that's fair enough and people can believe what they like. I prefer to observe that humanity has always thought the world was going to pot, probably all the way back to Adam moaning on about the glory days before he bit that bloody apple.

Those who bemoan the modern world often have it in for the young, as in that potty comment about raising a generation of savages.

The night before reading that excitable opinion, I attended a celebration of achievement at Joseph Rowntree School in York.

The ceremony lasted for two hours on a wet and miserable night - the sort of night when the prospect of leaving the house to sit in a school hall was hardly enticing. Could we have made our excuses and stayed at home? Certainly not - for we would have missed seeing all those wonderful and inspirational young people going on stage to receive their prizes.

So often all we hear are complaints about the young, so how reassuring to see teenagers of intelligence, wit and charm. There is nothing idealistic about this statement and I'm sure the winners have their off moments, being a) human and b) teenagers. But what a marvellous bunch they looked on Monday night, celebrating their success in academic subjects, sport and music.

A lively guest appearance by York panto perennial Martin Barrass lent the evening just the right air of jollity with a purpose. There was not, so far as I could see, a single savage in sight.

Here, to close, are the thoughts of a senior policeman, deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, of the Metropolitan Police, who believes we are in danger of "negatively stereotyping young people as hooligans, whereas the vast majority of young people are decent, law-abiding citizens who want to do the right thing". How true.

Updated: 08:25 Thursday, December 01, 2005