A major test for Obama

As if the incoming President had nothing else to do - like getting America back to work,trying to resolve the financial mess etc - he has one massive foreign policy challenge ahead of him and it's called Palestine.

The issue that George Bush chose to put on the back-burner is something which Obama desperately needs to bring to the front of America's foreign policy agenda. Why? Because America has the power and influence to broker some kind of an urgently needed deal to get Israeli - Palestinian negotiations back on track.

The situation which escalated this week has hideous possibilities. Given the hatred that exists between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, it was always a massive uphill climb to hope for a lasting peace, but when Hamas won the elections in Gaza in 2006 that situation took an even more sinister turn. The Israelis are having to deal with two Palestinian governments which don't trust each other and both hate Israel.



While Israel is prepared to deal with the Palestinian Authority in the west bank it will not deal with Hamas in Gaza, regarding the organisation as terrorist and not to be recognised. Fair enough, some may say, given that Hamas has declared that Israel has no right to exist - but perhaps Israel should look back to the late 1940s when its own freedom organisations were regarded by the British in exactly the same light.

There is a lot to be said about wording. Hamas has said it does not recognise Israel's right to exist. That could be a long way from a vow to destroy the Israeli state. However reluctant Israel may be to deal with these Gaza 'terrorists' maybe they have to swallow their own vomit and get round the table.



Certainly what has happened this week cannot be allowed to continue. Hamas has continued to provoke the Israelis, firing 80 rockets a day into the country and randomly killing its citizens. No nation on earth is going to put up with that. But Hamas knows that when Israel strikes back it does so with a vengeance. Hamas is surely inviting Israel to commit to a ground war which, even if it 'wins' (whatever winning means in this context) the international condemnation will be so great that Hamas will have won a diplomatic victory.

This is where, I believe, the new American government can play a strong leading diplomatic role. Obama has a lot of good will and credibility going for him at the moment and maybe he can rescue America from some of the opprobrium surrounding the Bush legacy by making this issue of the Palestine -Israeli conflict a primary one. America must try its best to persuade Israel to sit down with both Hamas and the Palestine Authority and it must, I believe, commit diplomatic resources to spurring on such a coming together and more to be a key player in hammering out the basis of a new independent Palestinian state.

It's not going to be easy, far from it. It is going to be a major diplomatic headache, maybe for some years to come. But I believe America is best placed to exert pressure and influence on both parties and to come through with the kind of diplomacy which used to be an American by-word.

During the invasion of Iraq, one cynical US military chief said 'We don't DO nation building'. Well I believe that's exactly what America has to try and do as a top priority, with European help. If not and these fierce adversaries are just left to go the way Gaza has gone this week, the middle east will soon be another bloody inferno and it will be too late to do anything about it.

The Pope's depressing mediaeval message

I've been away over Christmas hence the lack of updates to the blog and I would certainly have commented on this issue before. There must be millions of progressive Catholics all around the world shaking their heads in sorrow at the Pope's choice of Christmas message.

Pope Benedict's Christmas message, which said that saving humanity from homosexuality was at least the equal of saving the world from the effects of climate change, was shameful and a throw-back to attitudes at least 100 years out of date.



Comments of this sort from the head of the world's biggest Christian faith can do nothing but stir up hatred and discord when the secular forces in the western world have sought to overcome these traditional attitudes which blighted our society for too long.

Does the Pope think a person chooses his or her sexuality? Surely that is something as ordained by God (if He exists) as one's ability to be a Shakespeare or an Einstein?

It is one thing to suggest what membership of a particular Christian church believe...that is the Pope's right as head of that church and the right of others to either endorse that view or disagree with it, but the Pope went much further than that. He suggested that the human race was in peril from homosexuals..and that is akin to witch-hunting - at which the Catholic Church has proved notoriously enthusiastic over the centuries.

Anyone would think homosexuality was a new 'fad' rather than an orientation which has existed since human beings existed and it is so depressingly mediaeval that the Pope should use his Christmas message - supposedly bringing peace and love to ALL mankind - to create division and the possibility of encouraging 'gay-bashing' as a result.

It is not merely depressing but grossly hypocritical coming from a church which not only opposes the genuine love between two people of the same sex, but is so keen to avoid tarnishing the reputation of its clergy that when homosexual abuse of young children has been committed by the Church's own representatives, it has gone to great lengths to cover it up and protect the guilty regardless of the misery inflicted on those unfortunate children.

The best they could get from a squalid tragedy

The jury at the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by police marksmen at Stockwell tube station three years ago, in the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber, have returned an Open verdict on his death.




Whatever gloss the police might try to put on this, it is a devastating indictment of their behaviour, particularly after the tragic incident, where officers have clearly lied in their teeth to protect themselves. The coroner ruled out a verdict of Unlawful Killing as an option, otherwise I reckon the jury may well have returned such a verdict. There was certainly no grounds for the outcome desired by the police, that of Lawful Killing, not only because they got the wrong man but because the procedures were flawed and several officers covered up the truth.

The result is the best the De Menezes family could have got, though the family must feel anger as well as grief that some police officers are getting off the hook. The De Menezes family lawyer suggested that perjury charges could be brought against officers who claimed to have shouted a warning which none of the tube train passengers heard, but that option has been ruled out of order.

What is SO distressing about the case is not the tragic death itself - though of course to the family of the dead man it is everything. It was understandable in those anxiety fraught hours and days after the July 7th bombings that police officers would take extreme measures to stop a repeat and that there was the possibility of a mistake being made.

What has angered me throughout is that the police seem to have been unable to put their hands up and say 'we made an honest mistake which has cost a man his life and we are more sorry than you can imagine'

Instead a smoke screen was thrown up, a tissue of lies about De Menezes vaulting the barrier to escape the law, suggestions that he was an illegal immigrant (as if that made killing him justified in any case) We now know too that the firearms police believed they were operating under Kratos, a strategy the British special firearms unit adopted, secretly, from training they absorbed at the hands of the Israeli security forces. Basically this says, if you are virtually certain you have the right man, don't shout a warning because they will blow the device. Instead open fire to the head and kill them. (The bullets they use, incidentally, are fragment on impact bullets which virtually destroy the victim's brain and do not go through the body, thus are safer in a crowded place).

Now I can understand why they believed this to be such a situation, (wrongly directed though it was and I am yet to fathom how the operational control seems to have skated out from under this mess...except of course for the ritual 'falling on his sword' of Sir Iain Blair. The officers who were directly responsible are still in post) What I cannot understand is why, once the error was realised, the police had to concoct all sorts of stories about shouting warnings and De Menezes reaching for something suddenly. All of this, as testified by eye-witnesses, is rubbish.

We seem to have a situation where specially trained police units are told to operate in a way which is outside the code of practice laid down for armed confrontation. However they are not to ever ADMIT that such a covert policy is in existence and to go through the theatre of claiming that they had taken such and such an action in accordance with the rule-book.



One of the two men shown above, C2, who shot De Menezes broke down in the witness box and said it was a burden he would have to carry for the rest of his life. And I believe him. But he HAS his life and that of his family. The De Menezes family have lost an innocent son to a horrible operational mistake.

I don't suggest for a minute that the police officers are any happier than anyone else that an innocent man died. I believe that they set out to do their duty in protecting the public from bombers..and that is a brave and honourable thing to do. What is neither brave nor honourable, is, once a mistake has been realised, to do everything possible to obstruct the course of justice by claiming all sorts of actions on their part which didn't happen...and all sorts of actions by the dead man -also which didn't happen - which impugn him and his family.

When are the police going to realise that the public would have far more respect for them if they told the straight, honest truth that they tried to do the right thing and failed. We are all human, we can all understand that. What the public cannot stomach, from our guardians of law and order, is a tissue of lies every time a serious mistake is made, designed to cover arses. That HAS to stop.

Human rights and how to circumnavigate them

This Wednesday, December 10th, is Human Rights Day. It is the acknowledgment of two things. The fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights came into being 60 years ago this week affirming basic human rights to every man, woman and child on earth. The second acknowledgment is that the Declaration is cynically trampled on day by day, hour by hour all over the world.



Last Saturday, Amnesty International, of which I am an active member, held a human rights card signing for prisoners of conscience all around the world, at St Martins Church in Birmingham's Bull Ring Centre and, as always, attracted a lot of people into the church annexe to sign the cards. Maybe they will forget all about it later but it pricks a conscience every year and maybe some of those people will do more than walk by and sign cards. Maybe some will become involved.

Later that evening another Birmingham Amnesty group sponsored a music and poetry evening at Birmingham's Library Theatre for a group of people called 'Writers without borders' - a group of talented people from all over the world who have settled here, many of whom are victims of oppression in their original homelands. The talent was considerable but the sincerity of purpose was even more impressive and I left feeling uplifted.

Even walking nearly 5 miles to my home on icy pavements, thanks to the city being gridlocked by late night shoppers and not a bus in sight, failed to dampen my good spirits.

What did - and what should dampen yours if you are British - is to look at the commitment to human rights by our two main political parties. Although the Conservative Party -as one would expect - is the most shamelessly hostile to being 'hostage' to all the provisions of the human rights declaration, the Labour government is not much better, with its attitude of 'we're all in favour of human rights provided they don't inconvenience us too much'

The Tories have blatantly threatened to repeal the Human Rights Act if - God forbid - they get into power at the next election. The Labour Party - which passed the Human Rights Act in 1988 - has since pathetically, shamefully backed off it and has derogated from the European Convention on Human Rights, claiming -as do all pathetic governments when doing squalid deeds like this - 'national emergency' and 'threats to national security'. Well apart from the fact that such threats have been invited by the hideous, foul decision to back Bush and make war on Iraq, there is no excuse for any government to tear up a basic fundamental right of any human being, regardless of the extra effort to pursue the truth. Yes people who were party to acts of aggression against the UK have to be arrested and tried. But they MUST be given full legal representation and they MUST be treated with humanity, regardless of what they are suspected of. You do not prove your human rights credentials by sinking into the same tactics as the people you accuse. Sometimes it is hard work and a government faces criticism for a 'soft approach'. But such criticism HAS to be overcome.

A person's human rights are not negotiable by governments on the basis of necessary expediency. And where those rights are trampled on, governments should be held to account either in the appropriate European or International Courts of justice. And that holds true for the Americans in particular whose shameful refusal to recognise or endorse an International Criminal Court has been another stain on the Bush administration. Their reluctance, of course, following the invasion of Iraq is understandable and self preserving - but shameful, nonetheless.

Barack Obama has claimed that he will 're-visit' the issue of American participation without actually promising 100% support for the Court but I am hopeful, in the light of his other commitments, that he will add this to his list of moves to turn America around to being the moral force it ought to be. The world will be a better place when all the major powers realise that they have an obligation to practice what they preach.

Human rights is not something you can sweep under the carpet if it doesn't happen to suit your agenda. If December 10th does nothing else it should remind us all of that.

Why the system fails children at risk

I don't usually 'lift' articles from newspapers but I'm afraid of losing this one from yesterday's Times Law Review by Martha Cover a member of the Family Law Bar Association and, in my opinion, one of the clearest most dispassionate analyses of why child protection sometimes fails, and why, in the opinion of the writer, changes in legislation regarding child protection are likely to produce more 'Baby P' s unless something is done to change the culture within government and social services.




"Ed Balls moved swiftly to remove Sharon Shoesmith from her post, and states that every local council must learn the lessons of Baby P’s death. But in many ways, Shoesmith was the perfect children’s director for the new-look Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Since 2004 two of the goals set by the department have been to reduce the number of children subject to formal or legal protection by the courts. The numbers of children in care and on the child protection register had to come down. And they did.

Last December, four months after Baby P’s death, an Ofsted report praised Shoesmith’s regime for this dangerous achievement. To any childcare lawyer or judge it does not seem credible that in December 2006, social workers could hand the nine-month-old to a young friend of his mother’s, when a paediatrician and police had decided that his head injury and bruising were suspicious. They allowed him to drift home after a few weeks because the police were unable to identify the perpetrator and charge anyone with a crime.

Baby P should have been the subject of a legal planning meeting between social workers and a local authority solicitor. An application for an interim care order should have been made to the family proceedings court. A judge or magistrates would then have been asked to decide if he should go home or not, including Baby P’s court-appointed guardian. But not only was Baby P not offered the protection of the court and a guardian, the social workers did not seek legal advice until July 2007. How could this have happened?

In 2004 Every Child Matters, a very important Green Paper, was published. The aim was to provide for all children by joining up services provided by education, health and social services. The focus was to be on early prevention and intervention. These services have failed to materialise.

The one clear effect has been to raise the threshold of risk to frightening levels before social workers will take legal action. The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) have ignored repeatedly the serious impact this policy has had on children at risk.

These were the national findings of the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) from 2004-07: “Access to family support for many families in need is severely restricted. Families in considerable distress on the threshold of family breakdown and serious harm are not getting the sustained support they need. Some services operate inappropriately high thresholds in responding to child protection concerns and taking action to protect children . . .” This warning went unheeded. In April last year responsibility for inspecting children’s social services was taken away from CSCI and handed over to Ofsted, diluting expertise and marginalising the role of in-depth inspection in child protection.

In the summer of 2007 a procedure for care proceedings, called the Public Law Outline or PLO, was piloted. It was designed by senior family judges with the intention of reducing delay in court proceedings by ensuring that social workers had assessed the family thoroughly before going to court.

However, it placed burdens on local authority social workers and lawyers for which they were completely unprepared. Social services departments had neither the people nor the resources to carry out the in-depth pre-action assessments required. They took fewer and fewer cases to court.

Last March the MoJ published findings of government research into care proceedings brought in 24 different courts in 2004. The conclusions were unequivocal: “There is no evidence that local authorities bring care proceedings without good reason . . . The expectations of local authority practice in preparation for care proceedings under the PLO far exceed what was undertaken or could have been undertaken before action to protect the child in most of the sample cases.”

On the first page of the summary of the research, led by Professor Judith Masson, there is an MoJ disclaimer: “The views expressed in this research summary are those of the author, not necessarily those for the Ministry of Justice (nor do they reflect government policy).” On April 1, with no attempt to evaluate its impact on child protection, the MoJ and the Department for Children, Schools and Families launched the PLO nationwide.

In May the ministry increased the court issue fee for care proceedings from £150 to £4,000. Five issue fees could pay for a family support worker for a year. Ten could pay for a senior inner city social worker. Ministers and the Association of Directors of Children’s Social Services repeated their bland assurances that this would not affect the protection of children, because local authorities still had a statutory duty to issue care proceedings. There was a
further immediate drop in care proceedings.

The Government does not like care proceedings. Nor do local authority managers. The reason is cost, both to the legal aid fund and to authorities, who are ordered to carry out comprehensive assessments that have been needed for years but never done.

Each care case is a mini-inquiry into the welfare of the child, his development and needs, his family circumstances, the ability of his family to care for him, and the amount of support and assistance they have been offered or would accept. Judges are often critical of local authorities’ failure to intervene sooner and more effectively, even where the family has been known to them for years. In case after case, one reads of the alarm being raised by health visitors, schools and neighbours. After short-term intervention, there is the constant refrain “case closed”.

Children will come on to the child protection register, and then, when things improve slightly, come off. Support and monitoring is withdrawn. This is the trigger for another crisis, within days or weeks. But local authorities are now set targets to reduce the number of children on the register for more than two years, and to avoid children being put back on the register once they have come off. This source of protection for children is also actively discouraged. The ministry research has established that more than 90 per cent of families in care proceedings are already known to social services, and more than 45 per cent for five years or more, before proceedings are taken.

Care proceedings can also have an impact on parents who may have been lulled into a false sense of security by years of ad hoc and intermittent intervention. When they find themselves in a courtroom they know they are in serious trouble. They get automatic access to legal advice and robust advice from an experienced lawyer can change their understanding of the concerns. Finally, many parents will listen to a judge when they will not listen to anyone else.

Children’s social work is about managing risk. It is a complex and skilled task, requiring close observation, the ability to talk to people, time spent with the child and his parents in their home. It is extraordinary what a difference a good social worker can make. Good social workers will use the court process to share the responsibility with the judge and get help and resources for the child. But these social workers often achieve what they do in spite of, and not because of, their managers. Their judgments are often overruled by managers chasing targets who have never met the child or his family. They are under pressure to complete paper work assessments, churning out low-grade checklist documents. Time spent talking to the parents and observing the child is devalued.

Children need to be protected from harm, and parents need to be protected from the improper interference and the unjust exercise of power by public authorities. The judges, guardians and lawyers help to ensure that the child is protected, against further abuse, against social workers unable to see the danger in the plausible but deceitful mother, and also against the promotion of government targets over the interests of the individual child."





Martha Cover - the author

A man who fell to the occasion

Michael Martin is a man I ought, in theory, to endorse as Speaker of the House of Commons. He has the kind of background of which Socialist legends are made. His father was a merchant seaman and his mother a school cleaner. He was a trade unionist from his teens who joined the Labour Party in 1966 when he was 21. He became a Labour MP for Glasgow Springburn in 1979 and served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary from 1980 - 1983. He served on various Parliamentary committees for the next 17 years, doing all the right things, and finally was chosen to succeed Betty Boothroyd as Speaker in 2000. The appointment was controversial as it had been convention to alternate the leading political parties in the Speakers role but Martin succeeded his fellow Labour MP.



The result has, in my opinion, been a grievous mistake. Martin's performance as speaker has constantly courted controversy, not least on the question of his claiming expenses.He was much criticised last year for using tax payers money to pay for lawyers to block negative press stories about him. He has refused to allow his wife to be security vetted and has also tried to block the publication of MPs expense sheets - presumably because they may well reflect on his own claims. He was investigated after his wife went on shopping trips and incurred £4000 in taxi fares which Martin subsequently claimed. He also charged the refurbishment of his home to expenses at a cost of £1.7 MILLION - the sort of figures most of us could only dream of.

Then, last week, came the arrest of Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman during which police searched Green's office in the House of Commons. Questions were asked about who had given the police permission to conduct such a search, the ultimate responsibility being Martin's. He came to the Commons on Wednesday with a speech designed to clarify the issue.

In my opinion the speech was hapless. Martin came across like some stumbling, insecure Uriah Heep putting most of the responsibility on the Serjeant-at-arms, Jill Pay. I have no doubt that Martin probably did find out too late to do much about it but being a public figure is all about taking responsibility. Martin's red-faced shuffling performance, punctuated with cries of 'Order' before he was even interrupted, came across like a 'nothing to do with me, guv' rebuttal.

It was not a performance guaranteed to inspire confidence and although it is convention to publicly support the Speaker, MPs can hardly fail to have been discomfited by the clear avoidance of responsibility shown by the senior figure in the Commons.

I believe Mick Martin should stand down as Speaker. This performance must, for many MPs have finally sapped whatever confidence was left in a man whose record in the role - both in the chamber and in his dealings outside it - has been sadly disappointing.

Do we need to think differently about child welfare?

So the predicted 'night of the long knives' following the report into the Baby P case has taken place. Ed Balls, the Secretary for Children, has done what was expected and suspended or sacked a number of senior child welfare staff in Haringey.



I have spoken to a number of social workers on line over the last 24 hours and there isn't one who thinks this is anything more than window-dressing. The problems still remain of a government which wants to see statistics which look good, furnished by a social services executive in every major council which ticks all the right boxes, and case workers on the ground who feel their bosses are too far removed from the action and don't understand their concerns.

It would seem that we need to change a number of things within the machinery if there is to be any perceptible change in the success rate within child protection. The obvious one of these - and I'm sorry if its TOO obvious - is that it wasn't Sharon Shoesmith, Cecilia Hitchen, Maria Ward or any of the other people who were sacked or suspended yesterday, who knocked Baby P about until the poor little mite was almost unrecognisable - it was the guardians with whom he lived. There may have been failings in Haringey and I am sure they are repeated in child protection services across the country, simply because these people have a thankless task and are battling under legal constraints and red tape which make their job often difficult and sometimes impossible.



And that, I believe, is the first and most fundamental change we need to consider - the culture that says a child is always better off with its parents. There seems to be some romantic delusion about parents and children bonding when facts would tell you that while giving birth to a child is a biological fact, loving it afterwards is far from a given.

Seems to me that we need to be a bit tougher in this area, no matter how many heartfelt cries and tears from 'distraught' parents when their children are taken away. Most people,I believe, no matter what the stresses and strains of daily lives which prompt anger and frustration would NEVER in a million years take those frustrations out on a baby. It is a mind set. If you are capable of beating up a child once, then frankly, do you ever deserve to be trusted with children again?

The second step has to be legal. I understand that the costs of obtaining a child protection order have increased over 20 times in the last 12 months, prompting councils to be more cautious about even taking such a step. Surely this is wrong and needs urgent review. Nobody wants a situation where social services act like the Gestapo. But at the moment they clearly do not have the balance of the law on their side. And that needs to change..and change fast!

Questions to be answered over Damian Green

There are serious questions which need urgent answers after the arrest of Conservative Immigration spokesman Damian Green on Thursday. There is no doubt that he has discomfited the government on a number of occasions over recent months, with information known to be leaked from the Home Office. Green was arrested on suspicion of 'aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office', held for 9 hours and released on police bail - due to face further questioning in February.



It is clear that Green got his information from a Home Office 'mole' - information which the government clearly did not want published - and that forms the substance of the charges.

But this raises very serious questions about the ability of the Opposition to do its job and the role of the police in such matters. There are issues which any opposition sees as being in the public interest which governments will try to suppress - primarily because its not in their interest rather than the public's. Gordon Brown is saying that government ministers were not involved in any way in the police decision to raid Green's parliamentary office and his two homes.

This may well be true. But I think it needs to be clear to everyone what did motivate the police action and exactly why, without any hiding behind some 'compromising future legal proceeedings' bullshit. The police need to come clean about what evidence they acted on in this case and who initiated the arrests.

We do need to be certain, regardless of our choice of governments, that democratic rights of Her Majesty's opposition are not being hindered and threatened by a wrongful use of police intervention.

Picture of the week

Remember him? Cheney's puppet? The guy who used to pretend he was running America until Obama stepped in and relieved him of a job for which he was hopelessly out of his depth? Well, he's obviously decided to go back to what he clearly does best

Has the bottom fallen out of Cameron's boat?

A few months ago, Gordon Brown was on the ropes...no, worse,he was half way through the ropes heading for a knock out at the next general election. His handling of the government was criticised, local election results were dreadful for Labour and the knives were out. David Cameron, on the other hand, was basking in the sure knowledge that he was Prime Minister-in-waiting, the British public certain to hand him the next election on a platter. The Tories were riding high in the polls. In a thriving economy, Cameron's arguments about Labour overspending and how his Tories could match the government's spending plans on necessary health and educational improvements without resorting to more borrowing - in fact robbing Peter to pay Paul - had met sympathetic ears.

Then came the credit crunch and the failure of the banks. Out of a financial disaster came Gordon Brown's hopes of salvation. Although the public blamed the government for some mistakes - not least the shilly shallying over the future of Northern Rock - it has bought Labour's contention that the problem is world-wide and needs extraordinary financial leadership. And, amazingly, despite being the party of government, and the Prime Minister being the man who has presided over Britain's fiscal policies for 11 years, it was to Brown the public has turned for leadership.

Suddenly Gordon was in his element. More, he was bestriding the globe like a financial colossus, hectoring, nagging, bullying governments - and especially America's - to follow his lead and spend their way out of trouble. Incredibly the United States Republican government has flirted with a form of socialism, baling out Wall Street to keep the banking system alive, intervening to pump money into the economy - policies which America would never have contemplated once.



And suddenly Cameron looks out of touch, caught off guard. He has had to do a series of U turns on what Conservative policy now is. They wont try and match the governments spending plans, they don't believe in spending our way out of a recession. The trouble is it's not clear what they do believe in. The situation seems to have caught them completely on the hop and at present Cameron is floundering.



I'm not for a minute suggesting that the Conservatives are now a busted flush. But certainly their serene stroll to power which not too long ago seemed inevitable is no longer the case. The budget of Alistair darling yesterday is a mind-boggling gamble which, if it fails, could plunge Britain into the level of recession not seen in decades. But if it works and the financial repayment strategy works to plan we could see, come the next election, one of the greatest revivals since Lazarus.

Is the blame-game a knee jerk response?

The saga of tragic little Baby P. whose hideous treatment and eventual death at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and a lodger, has been front page news for a week or more now and I don't intend to again detail the horrors of the case here.

But much is being made of the fact that it happened in the same London borough of Haringey as a previous front page case, that of little Victoria Climbie, 8 years ago.

Already the knives are out for the social services staff in Haringey, and not least for Sharon Shoesmith, the Director of Childrens Services in the borough. It is being said that for two such horror stories to happen in the same borough must imply major failings in the social services set-up there.



Well it may be true. Certainly the case is more shocking even than the Climbie case because the little boy was on the 'on watch' register and had been seen by countless officials and a paediatrician, all of whom, it appears, were misled to an amazing degree considering the extent of the little boy's injuries.

But we have to look at the complete picture. Haringey is demographically a very mixed borough, reasonably prosperous in the west, and pretty deprived in the eastern part. How many successful interventions have social workers made in the last eight years? I would imagine that there are parts of that borough where they are constantly on their toes.

Ms Shoesmith as Director of Children's Services has come under savage attack from the media and there is some pressure for her to resign her post. If that were to happen, it might satisfy the knife wielding critics, but would the children of Haringey be any safer. As soon as the knives came out for Ms Shoesmith, an amazing show of support came from nearly every head teacher in the borough.

"She has done an amazing job in turning this borough round ..there are no schools in special measures in Haringey" were a couple of the remarks in support.

There are, indeed, serious questions to be answered over social worker Nevres Kemal who claims that her concerns for some children in Haringey were ignored by her bosses and that she 'blew the whistle' on the Baby P case 6 months before the child died...and there does indeed seem to have been intense efforts by Haringey Council to legally have her silenced and the plot thickened this week when it transpired that a letter sent by Ms Kemal to Patricia Hewitt, the then secretary of state who passed it on at a time when two government departments were changing roles and the letter appears to have fallen down a bureaucratic hole in the middle. The classic cock-up theory - 'if the worst thing can manifest itself out of confusion, it will'

So there are serious questions to answer. But before social workers or their Director are roasted on a spit to pacify some media inspired sense of outrage, there should be a full and comprehensive public enquiry to ascertain if, as Ms Shoesmith said this week 'Sadly if parents are intent on killing their children it is very difficult to prevent them' or whether there are still fundamental flaws in the way the department of social services in Haringey operates. If there are, then at that point changes should be made - possibly of personnel as well as procedure. But until then, I believe hard working people with terrible decisions to make daily should not be scapegoated on the altar of some misplaced sense of righteous justification.

The ultimate manifestation of the American obsession?

Yesterday, an incident took place in St.Johns, Arizona, which shocked even local police and townspeople in a country which has become inured to terrible gun violence.

An EIGHT year old boy calmly and methodically shot and killed his father and a lodger in the house with a .22 calibre rifle. A case of a child doing something in spontaneous haste? Oh no. The child used a single action hunting rifle from which he had to eject the shell each time he fired - and he shot each man at least four times.



To the average mind, this kind of behaviour by an eight year old child is inconceivable. It seems the conduct of a monster. But is it all part of the twisted psychology linked to America's obsession with the gun? We have seen so many occasions in the past where teenagers have acquired a gun and wreaked havoc in the shopping mall or on the college campus and, in every case, some investigation has gone on into their disturbed past and then America has gone on just as before.

This little boy's father was a hunter. He taught his young son to shoot almost as soon as he could walk. And he taught him pretty well, it would seem. The kid was unerringly accurate. The child was taught to kill prairie dogs when he was very young and one wonders what his father's attitudes actually were to shooting anything. Now heaven forbid that I should blame the victim in the case of a murder but - and this is rhetorical since I don't have the answers - was the parent's priority all wrong.

Was the child taught that being able to shoot a gun was manly and macho? That being accurate and deadly was important? Was he also taught that a gun was something you had to respect and use to kill only when it was necessary? Did his father talk to him gently about the sanctity of human life and how the weapon he held in his hand was so lethal that he had to think twice three times every time he pointed it at something ? Was his father the kind of man to get that message across or was that perceived as wet, sentimental woman's work?

And what happened with the maternal side of his upbringing. The parents had recently divorced and the father awarded custody. That's unusual. What kind of influence did his mother have? Did he hate his father over the marriage break up. Maybe we'll never know.

But a tiny child now stands accused of the murder - premeditated and cold-blooded - of his father and another man. Is this the manifestation of the ultimate horror...that American children have such ease of access to guns and so little understanding of the finality of their use? That a gun is a kind of fantasy toy that you read about in the comics..something that takes away all the troubles in your life?

The new President-elect is concerned about the degree of gun ownership in American homes and attitudes by some towards their use. But there is precious little he can do about them faced with the tough lobby of the National Rifle Association and the terrific amount of money poured in by pressure groups to maintain this perverse interpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

If it is impossible to take the guns away from American homes, as seems the case, maybe when he becomes President, Obama could spearhead a campaign for much tighter controls and maybe classes in infant schools to press home the message of how lethal a gun is. But I suspect it will all fall on deaf ears and I fear that some American children - like the little boy in Arizona - will continue to see the gun as the answer to all their problems without fully understanding the enormity of what they've done.

A time for hope and renewal

Well to my absolute joy, the US election did produce a watershed, not a wash-out (see previous post) and what a stunning result with Senator Obama winning by a landslide.

America can be an amazing country in its ability to transform and metamorphose virtually overnight. Speaking personally - and I don't think I'm alone - I'm a 'foreigner' who, as of this morning, has renewed his love affair with the United States after eight years of almost despising the country, politically. After eight years of the squalid Bush administration where America's reputation throughout the world reached the pits, a Kenyan American black man, by one stunning victory, has changed that picture in a way that is little short of miraculous.



It makes me wish that Martin Luther King could have been alive to see this day. I'm sure he would have been very proud. I accept that Obama does not come from the former slave population of America, but from a mixed Kenyan and American parentage, but that's really a nit pick. His skin colour alone, not that many years ago, would have ruled him out of any contention for the highest office in the land.

And he motivated black voters in a way never seen before AND he achieved success with convincing the white electorate too. It is a stunning achievement in a country which, only 40 years ago, needed anti race discrimination laws forced upon it, where children were bussed to segregated schools, where black civil rights workers were set upon and killed.

There is a danger that too much will now be expected from a man who has been elevated to the role of America's - and the world's - Messiah. That's only natural given the hype but it is a major danger. Winning could be Obama's finest hour and the rest could all be downhill unless real change is seen in the first 100 days of his administration.

Just a word for John McCain. I think he is a good man but I'm relieved that he lost. I'm relieved not so much because of his ramshackle campaign -forced upon him to some extent by trying to be a 'new' Republican and distancing himself from Bush - but because he IS a Republican and, regardless of his own views, he would have carried the luggage of die hard Republicanism into the White House..and frankly the world needs a break from that...and it's got one - in style.

Obama has inherited a nation fraught by problems in the economy and with withdrawing from the Iraq mess that Bush created. How he handles both in the first 100 days will be a measuring stick of his executive qualities, hitherto untested. I hope too, that an Obama presidency may give a fresh impetus to resolving the Palestinian problem. I believe Obama can, and will, take a step back from the old Israeli-American bear hug which gave the US little room for manoeuvre and start taking a more objective position in negotiations. I don't expect the US to abandon Israel, and nor should it, but neither should the opportunities for a peaceful resolution to this issue be hampered by the US always being seen to be in Israel's pocket.

Amyway time will tell what kind of a president Obama will make. For now I will simply glory in the capacity America has for self renewal after eight years of ignominy, and last night they did it in style! God bless America!!!

A watershed or a wash-out?

Next Tuesday the most eagerly anticipated US Presidential election in years will take place and, of course, it could ...and should..provide a historic first, a watershed in American history, a turning point where black Americans can truly feel they have the same standing and respect as whites, the day when America elects a black president for the first time.

Obama is, by most counts, streets ahead in the polls. But there seems to be a very strange atmosphere in the Democratic camp - and it's not simply the necessary modesty that precedes the crowning of their champion. There is genuine fear gripping the gut that the polls are misrepresenting the truth, that the large numbers of 'undecided' voters are not really undecided at all, but in fact cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man, but don't like to admit it.



In the aftermath of the Iraq War and, frankly, one of the most hideous Presidencies in my long lifetime, there has been more interest in this election outside the United States than I can ever remember. The reason is obvious. Americans may not see this, or like it, but the national reputation of the United States as a force for good in the world has been terribly tarnished under George W Bush. Europeans, by a margin of about 10 to 1, are longing for an Obama presidency for Europe sees Obama as someone who can change the image of the United States for the better. Someone who will bring a wise and very different approach to, particularly, foreign affairs.

Of course, as a dear friend in Connecticut once told me, for an American politician to be loved by Europeans does not necessarily enhance his electoral chances in the United States which has different priorities.

John McCain is not a bad man. He is not another Bush. But he has found it very hard to prove to anyone that the same tired Republican policies of Bush will not be continued should he win on Tuesday. He is talking about 'winning in Iraq' and that for a start shows a completely unrealistic assessment of the situation on the ground. He has picked a Vice Presidential nominee in Sarah Palin, who may have done brave things as Governor of Alaska but her attitudes are reactionary and her understanding of world politics naive to the point of absurdity.



So many people who care about politics in Europe are holding their breath - just as are the Democratic Party. Will America do the right thing on Tuesday? Will it cross that line of prejudice and bigotry and usher in a new era where a good, intelligent black man with the middle name of Hussein is elected to the top political job in the world. Or will it fall back on fear, resentment and racial prejudice to, almost furtively, vote for an elderly white man with health problems, and whose campaign has been ragged, disorganised and , at times, down and dirty to a degree which was revolting,- simply because he is not a black man?

McCain does not deserve the Presidency on the basis of performance on the campaign trail or of policies offered. But he might still creep in through the back door thanks to the bigotry and prejudice of enough voters who said one thing but do another. It is an unpleasant prospect but one which, however much it turns the rational stomach, might have to be confronted on Wednesday morning.

Squalid non-news but is it a symptom?

There can be few people in Britain who are not now aware of the row which has developed over two of the nation's best known presenters and 'funny men' (ironic quotes), Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, making prank phone calls to the answering machine of Andrew Sachs, another former funny man who was 'Manuel' in 'Fawlty Towers'.



For anyone, especially overseas readers, who haven't read the furore, Brand and Ross phoned Sachs, who is now 78 and long retired, on a late night show, found him to be out and left obscene messages on his answering machine, one particularly being a boast by Brand to Sachs that he had 'f***ed your granddaughter'



Sachs was so disgusted when he got the messages that he immediately complained to the BBC and, once the incident received nation-wide press coverage, there have been clamours for the presenters heads to roll and for a full enquiry to be launched. The granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, is not exactly a wilting violet, and has a life as 'Voluptua' in a erotic burlesque group called 'The Satanic Sluts'.



Because the girl was no saint, this presumably was the 'permission-giver' for the two entertainers to do what they did...and amazingly the show content had been approved by BBC light entertainment bosses.

While it seems pretty clear to most people that what happened was way in excess of acceptable banter, I am equally sure that Brand and Ross, on an adult late night show, were sure that their obscene repartee was nothing out of the ordinary for a 'sophisticated' late-night audience.

And that's the point of this little article really. They were probably right in their judgment of their audience..and that's a worry to me. Our society, and its humour, has become much more cruel and indifferent to personal hurt. There are BBC shows like 'Little Britain' which exhibit this trait and they have a fond following. Now they and stunts like that of Brand and Ross may well be aping the times, but I do feel that the TV companies have a responsibility to start looking seriously at the messages they are sending out not just rolling with the flow. I'm not a prude - far from it - but some of the stuff that passes for entertainment is beyond the pale and the company to which we pay our licence fee has a duty to do something about redressing that situation.

I know the BBC is not the guardian of our morality, nor would I wish it to be. Indeed I have been one of the supporters of more freedom in subject matter, particularly when dealing with sex and adult themes. But what's happening now is not a growing maturity, it's quite the reverse. It's a case of overgrown schoolboys indulging in locker-room humour in the full glare of a mass audience, indifferent to what hurt they cause...and it's a trend which responsible broadcasters need to get a grip on.

A toast to Swindon Council!!!

Glory be....a council in England has had the guts to publicly acknowledge what most of us motorists have known for years, that speed cameras are simply an easy means of additional taxation and do precious little to curb accidents.

Swindon in Wiltshire has become the first council to discontinue the use of speed cameras on all its roads, saying that the revenue it would have spent keeping them maintained will now be spent on better road lighting, improved junctions and better driving awareness initiatives.

The British government, needless to say, disapproves of this decision, and the Department for Transport has already been critical saying that speed cameras reduce accidents by 42%. Swindon Council has responded that, by the Government's own figures, speed is a significant factor in only 6% of accidents, while tiredness, lack of concentration and sheer carelessness account for 42%.



There is no doubt that people drive slower through a speed camera zone, but I'm not sure that makes them any safer. In fact my experience is I spend more time looking for the next camera and at my speedometer and that is time I would normally have spent watching the road, and particularly the car in front.

I hope this is the beginning of the end for speed cameras. They are a cash cow and little more. They may make people slow for a short time but they don't change habits and people simply look out for them. Swindon's approach in suggesting more driving awareness initiatives, particularly for those caught speeding, is a good one.

So upstanding everyone and please drink a toast to....Swindon Council. And may I ask you, Swindon councillors, when you come to disposing of them, can I come along with a hacksaw and chop the head of the first one please?

PS. My judgment is slightly clouded having just applied for a new European style plastic card driving licence to replace my years old paper one. Part of my reason for paying £17.50 for a new one was to have a new licence clear of speeding endorsements (having been picked up twice by aforementioned damned cameras) Unfortunately, when it arrived, one endorsement was still on it.....and has only 2 weeks to run!!! I had forgotten that endorsements are now on for four years not three.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

Mark Twain once borrowed an extract of a speech by Benjamin Disraeli and uttered the famous phrase, 'There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics'. The truth of this emerges at regular intervals when governments produce figures designed to make themselves look good and to placate fears felt by their electorate.

The latest of these - which will come as no surprise to anyone who lives in the inner cities of Britain - is that the police in some areas have under reported the level of serious crime. To such a degree it would appear that the level of violent crime in the United Kingdom was under reported by a staggering 22%.

It appears clear that this is not crime that was omitted, simply put into the wrong category, but the difference once clarification has been made is quite shocking. Of course the police spend half their time compiling statistics and putting a tick in the right box just so that government ministers like the Home Secretary. Jacqui Smith, can appear on television quoting crime statistics that favour the government.



Most of the problem is caused by the Home Office continually sending out new instructions in the way they want crime reported. As recently as April this year the guidelines were changed again and the police sent another set of instructions on how they account for crime.

This is quite ridiculous and clearly being fine tuned to such degrees that the prime aim is to provide great political ammunition and not assisting in controlling crime. Keith Bristow who is the Chief Constable of Warwickshire supports the recent government changes to reporting statistics but I'm sure he and other police chiefs would now be grateful for a degree of stability in all this chopping and changing.

As far as Ms Smith's government department is concerned it might be well advised to declare a moratorium on further tinkering with the way crime statistics are analysed and spend time ensuring that every police force is singing off the same hymn sheet. I do feel there is a tendency with this government to over complicate in every area - lets face it they have driven the teachers nuts over SATS testing - and this is another example whereby the recording of data enables the government to parcel it in any way that suits their purpose. Lets get back to basics and concentrate on letting the police do their prime job of catching criminals and not filling in tick sheets designed to make the government look good in the media.

Another disgraceful piece of cheese-paring by Britain's armed forces

A coroner's inquest into the RAF Hercules crash in Iraq in 2005 which killed all ten occupants of the aircraft has produced some abrasive comments from the Coroner, David Masters, about the policies of the RAF and Ministry of Defence and of the attitude of the United States authorities in not allowing their forces, who were witness to the crash, give evidence.

It seems to be another example of Britain fighting a war on a shoestring budget for the most significant element in the coroner' s damning verdict is that none of the RAF Hercules planes were fitted with the ESF anti explosion foam around the fuel tanks. The plane was shot down by enemy fire but the cause of death was the massive explosion which blew the plane to smithereens once the fuel tanks were pierced.



The Americans, it seems, have had all their Hercules planes protected with ESF for over forty years!!! The RAF and the Ministry of Defence knew about the vulnerability of the fuel tanks in battle conditions and had been told for years to fit the anti explosive foam - but they ignored two or more recommendations.

Why? Money, that's why. The cost of applying ESF to each plane is in the region of £600,000. It makes me sick. For all the pomp and ceremony with which each British serving death is commemorated, the truth of the matter is that these men are treated like cannon fodder. In an arena as fraught as Iraq, no effort should have been spared to provide every protection possible but in the eyes of the MOD these men are expendable. Their lives are not worth a light compared to the cost of providing them with equipment that works.

This is not the first case nor will it be the last. Bulletproof armour shared around and if the guy whose turn was yesterday gets hit , its just his bad luck. Guns that don't fire. Boots not suitable for the desert so that our troops have to borrow from the Americans.

We have some of the finest, most dedicated fighting men in the world, who do a dangerous and unrewarding job with bravery and professionalism - and they are treated like shit! Look at the case the other day too, guys trapped in a minefield and no one had thought to give them maps (in the possession of their superiors) to let them know the minefield was there. Then some complete arsehole gives the order to send in a Chinook helicopter to rescue them, a machine that kicks up such a ground swell of wind and dust that it sets all the mines off, blowing off the limbs of the trapped men and killing one of them.

This is not 1914. No longer can British politicians and generals send cannon fodder into the field on a half arsed, ill-thought out campaign, shrugging their shoulders if half the men are killed because 'that's the risk they joined up for'. Nowadays, whether we are in a state of war or not, thank God the consequences of official actions are examined in detail by coroners and their like.

But who pays for this litany of bad decisions, cheese-paring and shortsightedness. Who holds the people to account who sent our troops into a war zone ill equipped, badly supported and badly advised? Nobody! The Official Secrets Act covers too much investigation into how , what and why and these blunderers will continue to kill our fighting troops by their stupidity and anxiety to prove to their political masters that Britain can fight a war on a pittance.

If we are asking these brave men and women to serve Queen and Country to protect us, there should be an independent review into the financing of the armed forces and whether we are deliberately risking the lives of our troops simply to save money. All we have at the moment are a succession of coroners doing a great job in bringing these issues to public attention. I fear however that it is water off a duck's back for there is no authority in a position to make sure the Ministry of Defence listens....and acts!

Britain's sportsmen and women put a smile on our faces

We might be sinking into the mire politically and economically as the world's financial structure hits the skids but, for the time being at least, we can all stop walking around with that eternally gloomy frown muttering 'why is Britain never any good at anything?'

For years that lament about our sporting prowess seemed to be justified as the nation seemed to be eternal also-rans in just about everything and everyone said, mournfully, '...and to think we invented..etc etc'

But suddenly all our sporting summers seemed to come at once. Perhaps it began with cricket when cheeky chappy Kevin Pietersen took over from Michael Vaughan as England captain and proceeded to lead from the front, imbuing the national side with new confidence and they hammered South Africa in the one day test series.



Then our athletes came back from Beijing with the greatest collection of medals in our modern Olympic history...way more than was anticipated. Then the disabled athletes carried on the good work finishing their games in second place.



The young Lewis Hamilton, began to burn off his Formula One opponents creating anger and friction among those overpaid children known as Formula One racing drivers and, despite a mid term hiccup, yesterday won the Chinese Grand Prix to put himself within an ace of becoming the youngest World Champion ever.



Scotland's Andy Murray beat Rafael Nadal in the semi-final of the US Open tennis only to fall to the magnificent Federer in the final - but before that he'd won his first Masters event in America beating both Federer and Novak Dkokovic to win the title. Yesterday Murray reached his second Masters final event again beating Federer. Today he won the final for his second Masters title this year and his 4th tournament victory of the year in total. He will finish the season 4th in the world, the highest place any Briton has reached at end of season since Fred Perry in 1948



And last but not least - maybe the yardstick for most people of our sporting pride - the England football team, which had looked lost, lacklustre and devoid of any clue under Steve McClaren has come alive under the quiet guidance of an Italian, Fabio Capello and has won four world cup qualifying games in a row





- and best of all, Wayne Rooney, who had looked lost, petulant and fed up for so long in an England shirt, looks inspired and enjoying his football once more.



I suppose the only fly in the ointment is the Ryder Cup team which lost to America in a terrific contest. But I reckon we can afford one dark cloud on the sporting horizon - the victorious Yanks had been on the receiving end for the previous three Ryder Cups and, after all, one of the great British traditions is to be charitable to our opponents.

So let the economy and the government go hang! National pride has been restored once more in what really matters!!

An article on the Presidential campaign I couldn't match.

Usually I try to put my own views on any given subject but, today, I was copied on a newspaper article by Garrison Keillor - he of Lake Woebegone fame - on the election and the choices for the American people and I thought it was so good I will simply reproduce it here.




GARRISON KEILLOR
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

We are a stalwart and stouthearted people, and never more so than in hard times. People weep in the dark and arise in the morning and go to work. The waves crash on your nest egg and a chunk is swept away and you put your salami sandwich in the brown bag and get on the bus. In Philly, a woman earns $10.30/hour to care for a man brought down by cystic fibrosis. She bathes and dresses him in the morning, brings him meals, puts him to bed at night. It's hard work lifting him and she has suffered a painful hernia that, because she can't afford health insurance, she can't get fixed, but she still goes to work because he'd be helpless without her. There are a lot of people like her. I know because I'm related to some of them.

Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but not inevitably. The attempt to link Barack Obama to an old radical in his neighborhood has desperation and deceit written all over it. Meanwhile, stunning acts of heroism stand out, such as the fidelity of military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay -- uniformed officers faithful to their lawyerly duty to offer a vigorous defense even though it means exposing the injustice of military justice that is rigged for conviction and the mendacity of a commander in chief who commits war crimes. If your law school is looking for a name for its new library, instead of selling the honor to a fat cat alumnus, you should consider the names of Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Lt. Col. Mark Bridges, Col. Steven David, Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel and Maj. Michael Mori.

It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. The American people have an ear for B.S. They can tell when someone's mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged. When she said, 'One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,' people smelled gas.

Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself -- one stink bomb after another, and now Governor Palin.

She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Mr. McCain's first major decision as nominee. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will get a nice book deal from Regnery and a new career making personal appearances for forty grand a pop, and she'll become a trivia question, 'What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?' And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.

Your broker kept saying, 'Stay with the portfolio, don't jump ship,' and you felt a strong urge to dump the stocks and get into the money market where at least you're not going to lose your shirt, but you didn't do it and didn't do it, and now you're holding a big bag of brown bananas. Me, too. But at least I know enough not to believe desperate people who are talking trash. Anybody who got whacked last week and still thinks McCain-Palin is going to lead us out of the swamp and not into a war with Iran is beyond persuasion in the English language. They'll need to lose their homes and be out on the street in a cold hard rain before they connect the dots.

Are we right to blame the F.S.A. ?

As the so-called 'credit crunch' disaster, spreads and worsens throughout the globe - Asian markets are now in a downward spiral as I write - so the problem with the casual laissez-faire lending policies of the British banks is being blamed on the Financial Services Authority, which is supposed to oversee all financial dealings in the UK.

I wonder, though, if this is entirely fair, for an organisation can only respond as well as it is allowed to. The FSA is a non governmental body reporting to the Treasury with the brief of policing the way financial institutions operate.



Clearly, in view of the ludicrous dealings which, it is now clear, have been undertaken by British banks this regulation has been proved ineffectual. But in the past, the FSA has incurred the impatience and annoyance of the present Labour Government, Tony Blair expressing the opinion to his officials that the FSA was stifling growth with over regulatory control. So angry were the executives of the FSA that they wrote to Blair demanding an explanation.

Well if you are set up to do a job, and then told discreetly 'Don't exercise TOO much zeal, will you!' what signals do you pick up about what is expected of you ? One of the criticisms of the FSA is that it is staffed with former civil servants who are used to obeying 'His Master's Voice' and therefore dutifully listen to hints and signals from government.

It has been suggested, maybe unkindly, that the FSA is an elephant's graveyard for civil servants who had reached the end of their useful lives in government - second grade staff in other words - who are not going to rock any boats.

It seems to me that, in the light of this world crisis, the FSA has an outstanding opportunity to break free of whatever constraints it was operating under. It has a new Chairman and a new Chief Executive as of last month - a perfect opportunity for new brooms to sweep very clean indeed. Maybe there needs to be a turnover of staff and some people brought in from commerce and industry, but its clear that the FSA - and its relationship to government - needs a good shake up and a much less cosy relationship with the wishes of Ministers.

The rally where fuel efficiency matters..and boring as hell!

Today in the Midlands of England,a very special form of motor rally took place where speed and finishing first was far from important. It was an economic fuel usage rally where all the drivers had to ease off the speed be careful with the braking, change down perfectly on the gears at the right speed of the engine..and the winner was the one with the highest fuel efficiency.

Great for these economically troubled times. Great for the carbon footprint, climate change consciousness, call it what you like...but Jeez, wouldn't you just sell your car rather than drive like that?

It must be wonderful to get 82mpg by driving at 28 mph for 4 hours to get as far as Manchester from Birmingham but, speaking personally, I'd be combatting severe leg cramps and boredom way before I got there. The joy of owning a car is to drive at speed down an open road, to revel in the power under your control, to handle the potential of a throaty powerful beast with skill and aplomb.

If I had to emulate these guys I'd sell my car and use public transport all the time. Maybe that's the answer. The British car industry is dead, Detroit is struggling with bale-outs from the US government. Maybe the thrill of motoring is a bygone treasure we can no longer afford. Maybe we are all going back to the stone age thanks to the cost of fuel.

But until I'm dragged, kicking and screaming, off the highway, I'm going to get the pleasure from my Mazda sports coupe..and to hell with the cost!!

Ridiculous abuse of the sex offences legislation

Yesterday the General Secretary of the Womens Teaching Union, Chris Keates, made some controversial remarks and set the cat among a variety of pigeons. She suggested that teachers who have relationships with pupils over the age of consent are punished excessively by being charged with a criminal offence, sometimes jailed and put on the sex offenders register.



My only complaint about Ms Keates remarks is that they were not forcible enough. I think the situation we have of people being criminalised for something they could legitimately do with anyone they are not in the position of teaching, is ludicrous, crazy and in itself, criminal.

Of course the supporters of the current legislation will argue that the teachers are in a position of responsibility and are in a position to influence the vulnerable etc etc etc. Well I think that is so much bullshit and insults the intelligence of the young people involved.

Now I certainly think that teachers who do breach their position of trust with pupils should be dismissed and maybe not allowed to teach, certainly for a period of time - but criminalised, certainly not!! And as for the use of the sex offenders register for nearly every offence which has the vaguest relationship to anyone under the age of eighteen, well that makes me spit teeth. No such register existed in Britain until 2003 but once it was introduced, the authorities seem to regard it as a wonderful panacea for all ills and it is used to ridiculous excess. Certainly putting teachers on it for loving and consensual relationships with a person over 16 is ludicrous.

Yes, Ms Keates is spot on and I hope she is listened to but I have little hope that such will be the case. Britain, you see, is in the grip of child protection zealots who see terrible threats to our children everywhere they turn. And anyone, like Ms Keates, who dares to suggest that measures in place are something of an over reaction are howled down by the mob. You see its only the rights of children that matter - to hell with the rest of us.

Let's remember we are not talking about 11 or 12 year old here, but boys and girls of 16 and 17 who are old enough, and, in many cases, bright enough, to be studying for University. To suggest that they cannot wittingly participate in a loving relationship is plain barmy.

It is great that we have sensible steps in place to protect the children who desperately need it - and there are a lot of those. But the legislation goes way beyond the sensible to a degree where a person's life is ruined for an action which is treated with a degree of ludicrous disproportion.

Someday, I hope a sensible government sits down and looks at the current legislation and its fairness, takes a deep breath and decides to redress the balance a little. It means taking on the zealots who don't have to make a sensible case. They just have to talk about 'betraying our children' and all opposition collapses in a heap. Let's make sure our vulnerable children are protected as they should be but lets strip away some of this stuff that seems to have been added on in a fit of reckless self righteousness.

Teachers are human beings with emotions and feelings like the rest of us. Yes there should be work penalties for giving in to those emotions in a position of responsibility but, provided the partner in all this is above the age of consent, criminal proceedings should not be an option. We seem to have gone slightly stark staring mad on this issue and it's about time our society got dragged back to a position of balanced common sense which used to be our trademark