Should Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge, Be Looking Over Her Shoulder?

Yvonne Roberts gives us the latest proof that the government is not your friend. For, again, we see that the biggest cause of having an entirely screwed up childhood is having one controlled by said government:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In his book The Disappearance of Childhood, the American writer and educator Neil Postman wrote: ‘‘Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” Last week, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its damning investigation into children in care in Nottinghamshire. It gives gruelling details of how generations of children, living in a climate of fear, were horrendously abused by predatory carers in homes and foster families while Nottingham city council and Nottinghamshire county council, as well as police, social workers and the Crown Prosecution Service, repeatedly failed to act.[/perfectpullquote]

This is to emphasise the basic problem with the anti-market and liberty argument, the one that advocates instead that government should be telling us all what to do. Sure, there are indeed market failures, it is not a perfect manner of organising human affairs. But we have to consider the efficiency and equity of the alternative too. To say “this doesn’t work!” isn’t good enough. We must also identify what does work. And when we start to look at the government performance we find, often enough, that the failure there is worse than the very market and liberty failure we’re trying to cure.

All of which is obvious and true and too rarely done.

This though being the really interesting part:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In 2018, Jon Collins, then leader of Nottingham city council, said he would only apologise “when there is something to apologise for”. Apologies have now been made, however inadequate, but still, Hollas points out, accountability and punishment for profound neglect of duty is absent – as is so often the case (Rotherham, Rochdale, Islington). “It won’t stop until those happy to take the big bucks take the big fall,” he says.[/perfectpullquote]

That is, should Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge, be looking over her shoulder? Because it’s certainly arguable, as Private Eye has been pointing out for decades, that she should be considered for the Big Fall over the Islington mess. We can hope…..

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Tim Worstall

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  • "should Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge, be looking over her shoulder?"

    She has cause but no need, being a she of the left her immunity is guaranteed,

  • It is more likely, to me, that government per se has little to do with this one. The fact is, jobs in child care are likely to be sought out by those with an 'intense personal interest'. No not all of them, not most, but usually some. And it doesn't matter if it's the govt running it save they have the most likelihood of paying. Child abusers are present in pretty much every place where children are in a care situation. Baby-sitting by Uncles, Scout mastery, the Church, Schools public and state, football, absolutely wherever. The authorities don't seem to realise that applicants are likely to be kiddie-fiddlers and no amount of record checks are going reveal them all.

  • Indeed. One thing that appears to have got little in the in the discussions over Muslim grooming gangs is the proportion of victims in the "care" of the state.

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Tim Worstall

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