Apologies for two bites at the Centre-Right cherry in one day! But the last posting was a personal musing based on a day in the art gallery. This one is full-on political. I want to build on Julia's excellent expression of distaste for the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
Labour's proposals for the ISA - which goes live on 12 October - mean that an initial cohort of 11.3 million Britons will be added to the database of 'checked' adults. That's only a start, of course. This insidious, filthy law - actually, would it be possible to design a worse one? - will not protect children - that much is obvious - but it will lead to:
- fewer adults giving up their time to help in their communities;
- an increase in mutual distrust;
- the fostering of the corrosive anti-child culture which causes most men to shy away from so much as talking to a child in public, even if the child is in visible distress;
- an increase in unchecked antisocial behaviour (who's going to risk approaching a gang of teenage troublemakers now?);
- a waste of money on pointless bureaucracy.
A Labour chap posted the following on Twitter this morning:
If this law stops just one pedophile from gaining a position of trust with children it will be worth it.
I don't believe he can mean that: that we must support any law which stops "just one pedophile from gaining a position of trust". Because, of course, you could design multiple laws to do this: make nuclear families illegal and raise all children in state orphanages, under 24 hour supervision by a team of six independent adults, for example. Would the supporters of a law like that dare to imply that its critics are soft on pedophiles? Of course I'm being facetious. But my anger is not synthetic:
- I do not require to prove to the state that I am not a threat to children;
- These databases are a distraction from the real reason so many children remain at risk - failures in social intervention for families who need help.
We will never protect children while we treat their legal guardians and their adult friends as potential criminals, whose fitness as characters in children's lives can be assessed only by the state. This legislation must be repealed and this quango should be abolished.