Paul Boateng’s son will pay for doing wrong – shame his dad won’t

I am in a filthy mood having had to deal with endless financial forms online, resulting in the standard disasters and subsequent phone calls and general mopping up. We have one of the largest financial sectors in the world, and this is the best they can do?

 In the midst of all this soul-sapping ghastliness I heard that the son of “Baron” Boateng (a nickname, one presumes) has been convicted of sexual assault. I had managed not to think about Paul Boateng in years – but it all came flooding back.

Here was the man who did so much to get the Sus laws revoked (which obviously has had nothing to do with the skyrocketing of street crime on London’s streets during the past thirty years) and who introduced guidelines to allow adoption on the grounds of race (which presumably means social workers matching potential parents and babies using a Dulux colour chart) – and which, of course, would have had nothing to do with the fact that adoption rates have been plunging ever since.

Boateng also militated for legal firms to do more pro bono work – which would obviously have had nothing to do with the amount of ridiculous, footling, time-wasting, expensive “victim” cases clogging up our judicial system.

In 2000, when already a member of the Blair administration, Boateng’s Home Office portfolio was widened by his appointment as the first “Minister for Young People”. He promptly launched an enormous project to tackle “social exclusion” (no, I don’t have a clue) and to “promote citizenship” (?) – and spent £450m of our money on tackling child poverty (defined as not being able to afford the latest Playstation game, I expect). I would be very angry to hear anyone suggesting that these brave, enlightened initiatives had done anything but turn our disadvantaged and disaffected young people into those models of intelligence and good behaviour which have made Britain the envy of the civilised world.

But what I remember most vividly about Paul Boateng was his reaction on becoming the Labour MP for Brent South in 1987. Who can forget his beaming face as he grabbed the microphone at the count, and, backed by celebrating dancers wearing African national dress (or did I dream that bit?), roared “Today Brent South, tomorrow Soweto!”?

Here, at last, I remember thinking, was a left-liberal who was truly in touch with  the concerns of his constituents – I’m pretty sure that, like this Ghanaian-born barrister, their main obsession was bringing "social justice" to South Africa. “Don’t worry about the economy or jobs or social services or local crime or defending the country, or any of that old bollocks, Paul, my son,” I can imagine them telling the eager, presentable young chap on their doorstep. “You leave us to worry about all that while you think up ways of fomenting revolution in South Africa!”

It took a while, but Boateng finally got his wish when Blair appointed him High Commissioner to the wonderful, vibrant, happy country that was at the top of his “To Do” list when British electors in a seriously deprived part of London gave him the opportunity to serve them as their Member of Parliament.

And, because our Left-Liberal establishment knows how to look after its own, the great man was made a peer of the realm in 2010 – he is now Lord Boateng of Akyem (a village in the Cotswolds, no doubt).

I have paid no attention to the events which have led to the prosecution of this man’s son – and I take no pleasure whatsoever in the anguish Boateng must feel as a parent – but it does strike me that while Benjamin Boateng will be punished for whatever he did, his Dad appears to have got off scot-free.

I’ll end with this thought from Thomas Sowell (which I have included in the “Favourite Quotes” page at the top of this blog): “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

Not only do they pay no price, but fellow-members of the Great and the Good make sure that they are extravagantly rewarded for being endlessly wrong, at our expense.