Cameron Plays his Trump Card
Lord Snooty today played his trump card for the election. Or rather the good Samantha laid down and did her bit for the Tory Party and their election chances. i.e. She got pregnant and that’ll sway the vote. Or certainly many people hope so.
But seriously, my late wife did a lot of difficult family cases in her time at the Bar. If the Camerons had ever asked her, should they have another child after the death of Ivan, she would have told them to go for it. She saw many relationships that had been ruined by the death or illness of a child, but always told me that those that had another after the tragic event were more likely to stay together.
If you want to read a serious view on pregnancy and politics, Michael White has a nice piece in The Guardian.
Spitalfields City Farm
On Buxton Street is Spitalfields City Farm.
This is a wonderful venture that must on the one hand be visited and on the other supported financially and by voluteers.
Here are some pictures.
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.
We’re Under Control
Last night’s television was frightening.
It wasn’t any old horror story, but two programmes which shared a common theme.
The first was Panorama about the Government’s, Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) which aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults. A laudable idea, but it is being done in such a heavy handed way, that it will end up with large numbers of people being branded unsuitable, despite there being no real evidence.
Here’s what Sir Ian McKellen had to say about the effect on the theatre.
A new vetting scheme is dissuading amateur theatre companies from casting child actors, Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has said.
The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults.
But some theatres say they do not have resources to carry out the paperwork it entails, and Sir Ian fears child actors will lose important stage experience.
He may be overreacting, but then I always worry about schemes like this, as I have a very common name. As an example I’m in a database in Hong Kong and every time I visit, I’m called aside for special treatment. At least I haven’t ended up in jail, but one day my namesake might have upped his level of crime or annoyance. I also used to live in a small village with a criminal with a similar first name and the same surname. I had great difficulty getting a credit card, as I was thought of as one of his relatives.
I will be very unlikely to have any trouble with the Act, but then I only have about two hours contact alone with children in every year. And that is with my granddaughter, either when I take her to the supermarket or show her something on the computer, with one of her parents in the next room!
However, I’m thinking about volunteering to perhaps provide transport or computer help. Because of this Act, I have said that I don’t want to do anything concerned with children or their parents.
Is that the purpose of the Act? Because if no-one worked with children, then we wouldn’t have any problems would we!
And then I watched Generation Jihad.
This was chilling as young Muslims talked candidly about their outlandish views.
I feel that we may be winning some of the battles against those who feel we should be punished because of our lack of religion. The Police are arresting people before they do any damage, mullahs seem to talk sense in good English, and the tone of Muslims on phone-in programmes seems to be very much more tolerant to others.
But again oppressive legislation has been used against the Muslim extremists, that in the end may prove to be unproductive. How many people have downloaded anti-Western videos? Probably a lot more than you would think. For instance, I’ve been sent links to them in spam, by spammers in the Middle East. I unknowingly downloaded the first bit, but then as my Arabic is a bit rusty, so I deleted it.
If your brother was locked up for doing something like this, would you support the authorities or the brother? I suspect, where no actual threat has been proved you would support him.
So is this legislation actually creating more potential terrorists, rather than reducing them? After all if you’re prepared to be a suicide bomber, then a few years in jail if you get caught preparing, is a small price to pay. You can wait and probably you’ll learn a lot more in prison to help you on your way.
Let’s face it, on a scale of nastiness, terrorists and paedophiles are the lowest of the low. Oppressive agencies feasting on innuendo as well as facts, relying on typical government computing and staffed by people on not the best wages are one way to do it. But is that the best?
No!
These systems only catch those on the radar of the authorities. The London bombers weren’t and neither are most paedophiles.
I also have a big worry about these sort of systems. Supposing one was found to be a complete waste of time. Would it be scrapped? After all, if a government did, they’d be described as pro-paedophile or pro-terrorist. Look at how long it took them to sort out the Child Support Agency and the damage that was done in the interim.
So what should we do?
We should look at what causes people to become paedophiles, terrorists and criminals for that matter. One thing stands out; poverty. There is also the way that the parents treat their children. Many paedophiles were abused by their parents, many criminals take up their parents habits and there are terrorists, who have strained relationships with their family. Obviously, not all, but as the programmes pointed out last night, the seeds of criminality are sown within the family home.
Poverty is a very difficult one. The poor are very little better off after nearly thirteen years of Labour rule. But perhaps we should radically change things like the tax system to make sure that those at the bottom end keep more of what they earn, paying for it with taxes on energy. The tax system should also be seamless with the benefit system, so that part-time work is better and less hassle than no-time work.
I have hopes though about poverty and from a rather surprising person; Iain Duncan Smith.
As to family problems, my late wife spent a lot of her working life dealing with their breakdown. Barristers like her are being squeezed by the Legal Aid Fund and anyone worth his or her salt would not go into that field today. But then government doesn’t properly fund the Social Services, so that we get so many problems there.
But then those at the bottom end of society don’t vote, so looking after them is not on the average politician’s radar. Also horrendous crime plays well in Middle Britain, when the government says that they’ll bring in ASBOs, Super-ASBOs, life for littering etc. etc. I bet some wish capital punishment was still available.
But perhaps something that would help everybody, is that we should look at society and make it all a lot simpler.
Let’s have a Bonfire of the Regulations.
Ed Miliband and Disposable Nappies
Ed Miliband is getting a lot of criticism over using disposable nappies on his six-year-old son. Here’s the Independent.
This is absolutely right!
We used proper nappies for all our three sons. I know it was around 1970, but the pressure to use disposable ones was even then great from the manufacturers. I must admit, that we did use a disposable liner in the nappies, but this meant that you saved on the washing as the nappies weren’t so dirty. Tricks like this make proper nappies much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than disposables, which make up four percent of all household waste and end up in landfill.
The real luxury though was for the last baby, where we used a nappy service. You just put the dirty nappies in a bucket and a cheery guy collected them as he returned the freshly laundered ones. Much easier than anything else!
I think that I’ve heard that some councils are subsidising nappy services to cut the disposable ones going into landfill. If they aren’t, they should look at it.
Shame on you Miliband!
Bonkers Babysitting Rules
I was born just a couple of years after the end of the Second World War and my friend Richard Plumb was born a week later. We were friends for years, until we went our separate ways as teenagers and my parents moved to Felixstowe from Cockfosters.
Sadly, Richard’s father had died when he was a couple of years old and as his mother had to work, there was an awful lot of sharing of child-care between his mother, his grandparents and my mother. I grew up believing that this was the way that normal people brought up their children.
Later, when our three boys were young, we often looked after other peoples’ children and they used to do the same for us. In one case, one of the kids, Patrick Ford, was one of the first coeliacs I ever came across. His mother was actually a White Minstrel! I can remember the rules that Heinz beans were good and others were bad. It’s still the same today and even their beans with sausages are gluten-free.
But now apparently, the rules on childminders now mean that all of these informal arrangements have to be registered with Ofsted. Bonkers.
I have heard elsewhere on the news that there are now another 800,000 civil servants in this country. To me that is 800,000 too many!
The Anonymous Widower 