The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.

The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types.

America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home.

I don't think it's any coincidence that I lost my religious faith and 'manned up' in the same year. I was described somewhere as a lapsed Catholic which is funny because I'm not going back! I want to achieve things rather than live life in an animalistic way.

I'm a lapsed Quaker. I don't go to meetings any more. But I'm very drawn to Catholicism - all that glitter. I'd love to be a Catholic. I think it would be fantastic - faith forgiveness absolution extreme unction - all these wonderful words. I don't think anyone who was ever born a Catholic hasn't died a Catholic no matter how lapsed they are.

No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.

Has Bill Clinton inspired idealism in the young as he himself was inspired by John F. Kennedy? Or has he actually reduced their idealism? Surely part of the answer lies in Clinton's personal moral lapse with Monica Lewinsky. But more important was his sin of omission - his failure to embrace a moral cause beyond popularity.

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible.

The banking collapse was caused more than anything by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation rather than by greed.

Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.