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Err, no Polly

Politicians can\’t do all the heavy lifting on difficult questions where there is no easy line between absurd officiousness and a clinical negligence claim. Yesterday Martin Narey of Barnardo\’s spoke out in strong support for the new register. \”Calm down,\” he rightly admonished the ranters. The NSPCC added its support. All the charities for children, the mentally ill, the disabled and the elderly have been consulted: they are the ones who must give a dusty answer to frivolous critics. They carry weight because they understand tricky day-to-day problems.

Those charities and organisations carry very little weight amongst those in the know. For all of them are supplicants at the government\’s teat. Pipers, pay and who calls the tunes.

Of course those who make their living from tax money approve of the actions of those who dole out the tax money. Good grief woman, haven\’t you ever heard of incentives?

9 thoughts on “Err, no Polly”

  1. “Politicians can’t do all the heavy lifting on difficult questions where there is no easy line between absurd officiousness and negligence”

    There reason that there is no easy line is because there ISN’T a line between the two. Absurd officiousness and negligence are not just not mutually exclusive, they are more often coincident than not.

    That’s the whole point.

  2. I always think on these subjects we badly need to popularise a concept of my own invention a…… “Risk Landscape” . Without ,what we might call, a Bird Eye view of risk and measures to prevent it its so hard to decide what merits controls on our behaviour and what does not .
    Example -I think it has been dubiously shown that if you work in a bar and there is smoking there is some infinitesimal increase in your cancer risk. This flimsy meaningless fact has been used to carry through an unwanted and bossy ban on smoking without admitting that it is in fact a measure to stop smoking not passive smoking , … Thus the ,“None of your fucking business “ , problem well known to philosophers and poets alike, is avoided .

    If you set the passive smoking risk in its risk landscape however it is shown to be no worse than that of walking down a busy street and as an occupation “Bar staff “ is overall a cosy and safe one compared to almost anyone outside an office and this suppsed injury /disease problem I hardly registers in the real world .

    Now almost every time some new rule is suggested it is justified by reference to an absolute event , shall we say the molestation of as single child . there follows an argument no much more complex than..”But if one child is saved is that not enough “….
    The answer is no , for a variety of reasons , resources , other ishoos (like privacy and freedom ?) . What we need is to look at the child`s risks , allocate our resources where the risks are most real ( I include sacrifices of freedom in resources as a utility cost ) and act accordingly . The subject is the chance of harm per capita not the life of one child .
    Were we to do so it would be clears that there is no justification for a further infringement on our rights arising form the much exaggerated paedophile scare which , contrary to the lies perpetrated by Polly Toynbee is often questioned in the daily Telegraph and the Mail ( Boris …often). I would on the other hand accep the argument for further controls on driving around schools and perhaps early intrusions of state assistance into life styles , who knows where it may lead amnd wher we might draw our boundaries between risk and control

    What we would then have is a rational way to proceed and not an endless State of Emergency by which small risks are treated like imminent catastrophes for the extension of a Power hungry state ands its jobsworth parasite army

  3. I imagine that retired Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson, who investigated the Soham murders, has much experience of “tricky day-to-day problems”. Does he “carry weight” or he is a “frivolous critic”? In today’s Times he wrote,

    How do we prevent such chance encounters happening? We can’t. No amount of legislation, record keeping or checking could prevent this type of crime completely. Thankfully it is extremely rare. Children are far more likely to be killed by a family member or on the roads.

    Also, Polly may be interested to know that there have been many complaints about delays in CRB checks.

    And quite how Baby P is relevant, Polly alone knows.

  4. And quite how Baby P is relevant, Polly alone knows.

    Yes , I was puzzled . She seems top be saying that anyone who complains about the social services letting a baby die at the hands of her own parents cannot complain about pointless state hysteria about paedophiles.

    She said how can you blame the state for baby P , I thought well who should we blame then ? Certainly not the people who might have taken him to cubs had he lived ….

  5. I can see why Polly wants whole chunks of the adult population fed into yet another database.

    She makes the Fabian Webbs – who infamously lauded Stalin’s Russia – as half sane.

  6. Even the charities reference is a lie – the NSPCC does not support it.

    An extraordinary article – packed full of fallacies, ad hom attacks and lies. Truly hysterical. Polly is losing it.

  7. she’s losing it because she has waited so long for a Labour govt and now she has one. And, despite her impossibly high hopes and wishful thinking, this one has been as bad for ordinary folks as all the others. Nay: worse. I think Blair and Brown have screwed things up even worse than Wislon and Callaghan

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