Approximately 200,000 of our children have gone backwards in English and maths between the ages of 11 and 16, according to a recent survey. I hate to state the bleeding obvious, but isn’t it time to push the “reset” button to reinstate teaching methods that once produced a reasonably numerate and literate society? I’m guessing that would be pre-1964, when Labour came to power after “13 years of Tory misrule”, and just before the mania for comprehensive education set in. Or even to the 1970s when, as Education Secretary, that clever fool Shirley Williams oversaw the spread of comprehensives and the destruction of grammar schools.
Recently, looking back on a job well done, she had this to say: "If we hadn't had the comprehensive revolution (in) this country... we would not have anything like the skill base or the intellectual base (we have) today.” No, Shirl, we certainly wouldn’t – you guaranteed that! Mind you, when this destructive old lefty pops her clogs, I’m sure we’ll witness the sort of adulatory gadarene rush that marked the passing of that posturing old ninny Michael Foot. And I’m sure when Shirl was busily destroying our education system, she didn’t half feel all warm and glowing and egalitarian inside: after all, when you’re a middle-class left-winger, what else matters?
I’m sure the 89-year old mother of David Askew – the man who died this week after a decade of torment at the hands of local yobs – will have been comforted by Tameside Chief Supt Zoe Hamilton’s assurances that she and her officers had “done everything we could”. Three reflections: (1) the Chief Superintendent is obviously an insensitive, smug, dozy cow (2) as her best is evidently several light years short of being good enough, she should resign, and (3) once the court case against the young man who has been arrested in connection with Mr. Askew’s death has been concluded, all of the police officers involved in this tragedy over the past decade should be named, and asked to account in public for their failure to protect a vulnerable man man and his wheelchair-bound mother.
Still, as long as Zoe Hamilton feels good about herself...
Dr Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner (?), reckons that children under the age of 12 should not be treated as criminals under the law. And we shouldn’t be too swayed by the feelings of victims’ families when it comes to punishing the criminal. And "none of us is born a good person or an evil person. The backgrounds from which we come, and whether we are nurtured and secure, will shape our character."
Ah, the distinctive warbling of the lesser-spotted, highly-educated, left-wing female – not, unfortunately, an endangered species.
She’s dead compassionate, is Dr Atkinson – except towards the dead, of course, or their ghastly, whining, bitter familes. They can lump it, as far as the doc is concerned. There is no such thing as innate evil. Society makes us evil. (We are all to blame in a very real sense.) And of course children who commit crime are victims too: "Even the most hardened of youngsters who have committed some very difficult crimes are not beyond being frightened.” So what? I’m sure adults who commit “difficult” crimes are capable of being frightened as well – again,who cares? Is this really what matters here? (And I wonder what a “difficult” crime is? I should imagine killing a toddler would be a fairly simple matter, even for two ten year olds.)
I have no idea what should have been done with Venables and Thompson – though I’m pretty certain they shouldn’t have been identified in the first place. I’m sure most of were simply horrified by their awful deed, and wanted it punished in a way that would bring some peace to the family of the tiny, trusting, utterly defenceless victim, and which would simultaneously signal to other children that society considers the sadistic killing of someone weaker than yourself the most heinous and shameful of crimes. But the idea that we should decriminalize their behaviour is simply wicked: as Adam Smith put it, “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent”.
Certainly, there has been enough cruelty to the innocent already in this case. As for portraying 10 years olds as incapable of realizing the import of their actions, I somehow doubt that: after his arrest, it quickly became obvious that Venables knew he had done something terribly, terribly wrong. Of course, the age of the criminal has to be taken into account when dispensing justice – but locking them away without trying them in a court of law (which is what Dr Atkinson now says she actually meant) sounds very sinister: are we saying they’re mentally ill? Why? Because they don’t know the difference between right and wrong? But Dr Atkinson just told us that they’re too young to know the difference. If they’re not guilty of a crime, and they’re not mentally ill – what gives us the right to detain them?
So keen is Dr Atkinson to show us all how infinitely compassionate she is, she has evidently lost the ability to think logically – if, indeed, she ever possessed it. Unfortunately, being an adult, and being in charge of things like the criminal justice system, or even being the Children’s Commissioner (whatever the hell that might be when it’s at home) means that you’re paid – usually handsomely - to make difficult decisions based on what’s best for the protection of society. What you’re not paid to do is to come to conclusions and make fatuous pronouncements solely designed to make you feel good about yourself. But, then again, that’s what being left-wing seems to be increasingly about these days.
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