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January 23, 2006
Spare the rod and spoil the child .....
The arch-nannies so beloved of Mr Blair's Labour soviets are making noises again, this time it is the four "Children's Commissioners" who are demanding that smacking a child be made criminal offence on a par with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. According to this group of expensive and unelected Labour Appointees, children MUST be given the same "rights" as adults - but not, of course, the responsibilities that go with them.
This group of - and here I am struggling to find a printable adjective and pronoun - control freaks wish to see parents who smack a child that is running out of control charged with the same offence as a group of yobs (assuming the Police bother to pursue a group of yobs!) who kick a pensioner insensible in order to steal what little he or she may have. They also want to bring in "parenting classes" to ensure that "parents are taught alternative methods of persuading children to accept boundaries". These would, naturally, be compulsory, and no doubt too, any parent who dared to "fail" would be immediately under threat of having their children removed by the State and put out for adoption or fostering.
This group have consistently refused to acknowledge that two parent families generally have less trouble bringing up children than single ones, that children from families where there is a lone parent who works, or a lone parent who is on benefit and doesn't have a history of employment, are much more likely to run out of control and bring misery to a neighbourhood than any other child. In fact, the worst behaved and most problematic children are generally those from homes where the parents have never been disciplined and who feel that they and their children are somehow "owed" everything by the State. It does not seem to have occured to any of them, and least of all the Government itself, that these "Rights" without the "responsibilities" are 99% of the problem of criminal behaviour among young people. It is precisely because there is a total absence of penalties for criminal behaviour or even sanctions for bad behaviour that children now think they are untouchable and unpunishable.
It is this group of "Commissioners" who have consistently fought for the erosion of parents rights to bring up their children in a manner best suited to their circumstances and the childs own character. And it was this same group of visitors from the Planet Ming who recently demanded that more "Middle Class" parents be required to attend "Parenting Classes" because this group was "under represented"!
Well, in perhaps the first, and possibly the only, sign we have seen to date that Blair and his cabinet of power hungry closet communists, have noticed that the populace at large has had enough of this sort of garbage. They have rejected the call saying that "it would be hugely unpopular (You're telling us!) and unenforceable". Only one problem, the Commissioners" aren't listening and are now planning a trip to the European Court of Human Rights.
Time someone took them out and introduced them to a space ship with a one way ticket back to the Planet Ming.
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 23, 2006 09:13 PM
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