Lord Bailey: I Could Have Ended up in a Gang Instead of the Army Cadets

At 12 years old, the Army Cadets was “the only gang” attractive enough to keep Lord Bailey of Paddington out of a street gang. Having grown up in a council house in one of the poorer parts of London, Shaun Bailey has become a youth worker, charity founder, and a Conservative peer. According to Lord Bailey, fatherless boys can very easily be swept into gang activities, and male role models, ambition, good friends, mentors, and the Army Cadets, helped him to go in a different direction in life. “Army Cadets … was the only gang … to my 12-year-old self that looked like tough men to counter what was going on in the street,” he told NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” programme....