Lumley: 'Young have slack moral code'

Joanna Lumley has revealed that she thinks young people today are "being led into a false paradise".

In an interview with the Radio Times, the Absolutely Fabulous star said that she worries children believe that theft, plagiarism and playing truant are acceptable.

"Nowadays, children find it laughably amusing to shoplift and steal," she said. "We allow them to bunk off school and bring in sicknotes. There was one 'crime' during the whole time I was at school, when a fountain pen went missing. Stealing just didn't happen.

"We smile when they download information from the internet and lazily present it as their own work... We're leading our children into a false paradise."

The actress and political campaigner compared young people in the UK with those she had met filming documentaries abroad, saying that she had seen some children taking on great responsibility.

She continued: "In Ethiopia... you might find a 7-year-old expected to take 15 goats out into the fields for the whole day with only a chapati to eat and his whistle. Why are we so afraid to give our children responsibilities like this?"

Lumley further added that she would like to see children spending less time on the internet and instead taking part in outdoor pursuits like camping or working on farms.