1984 arrives in 2009: the State knows best, not its citizens

The world gone mad: No. 2378…

As if politicians and monarchy weren’t bonkers enough, what are we doing to parents and children these days?

This week a dinner lady at a village primary school was sacked for telling parents she was sorry their daughter had been attacked in the playground.  It turns out that four of the little darlings (boys, of course) had trussed up the poor girl like a turkey and whipped her legs with a skipping rope.  Charming…

Even worse, the school had covered up the incident and then sacked the dinner lady for telling Mum and Dad about it. What?!

Yes, this is a new world in which schools lie to parents about traumatic events affecting their children, and yet the only offence committed is by a person who breaks that official secrecy.  The chief executive of the National Association of Headteachers was asked what he thought the dinner lady should have done:  “…she should have refused to comment, and then followed proper procedures and processes”.      WHAT??!!

Parents are also caught out by these ‘proper procedures and processes’. In London a mother was banned from her 5-year-old’s classroom for politely asking another child to stop continually hitting her son.   Repeated requests to the school had had no effect, but she was evidently breaking the unwritten rule that says that no unauthorised adult – not even a parent – can remonstrate with a child.   WHAT???!!!

In Tyne and Wear, a mother asked a group of bullies to stop attacking her young daughter and was promptly ARRESTED IN FRONT OF HER CHILDREN and held in a cell for five hours.   The bullies had retaliated by falsely claiming that it was she who had attacked them.     Once again, the adult was punished for attempting to uphold the rules of civilised behaviour. Nothing in the system supported her.    Just for talking to the children she had been made a ‘legitimate object of suspicion’.

You couldn’t make all this up.

You should read the full Guardian article on what is happening to our society.

It is truly chilling, yet somehow we can’t seem to stop it happening.

Reforms designed to ‘restore trust’ in the criminal justice system will be proposed in a government report this week, including tougher community punishments.

The report, drawn up by Louise McCasey, former head of the government’s ‘Respec, bro’ Unit, has the blessing of Home Secretary, Jacqui McSmith, but some ministers close to Gordon McBroon say it is excessively punitive towards the young and will play into Tory hands and their talk of “a broken society”.

Among the more striking measures proposed:

· People serving community sentences should be forced to wear visible jackets (see picture) identifying that they are being punished for making the law an ass, and must complete their sentences without the use of Latin in a public place.

· The administration of the punishment system should be removed from the Probation Service and contracted out to an organisation known as the ‘Bullingdon Club’ – a group well-qualified to recognise offensive behaviour.

· The possibility of publishing “conviction politics posters”, showing people who have been found guilty of crimes against the people.

· The appointment of a Public Commissioner to represent victims of crime.

· Home Office ministers should no longer be responsible for publishing crime statistics, in order to restore their credibility with the public. (What credibility? – Ed.)

· Police community support officers should have powers to detain and to issue fixed penalty notices for disorder.

Minister McCasey will propose that community punishment is no longer termed “unpaid work”, but instead “community payback”. She believes the Probation Service is primarily concerned with rehabilitation rather than punishment, and she therefore wants lots of punishment, which will be contracted out to a new organisation. (See Bullingdon Club, above).

We at The British Citizen think these measures are unlikely to deter offenders, and may indeed inspire them to form a political party and run for government. Write to your MP now and say ‘NO’!

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