Child A died, failed by Doncaster Council

A report on Labour-run Doncaster Council’s website reveals that, despite ten referrals, they let a ten-month-old boy, Child A, who was ‘at risk’, die.

When will this shambles of badly managed and incompetent social services end, or will Balls try to divert attention again and blame hard-working social workers for Labour’s systemic failure?

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Haringey resignations: they should be prosecuted: but it’s endemic

Meehan, Shoesmith and Santry – Leader of Haringey Council, its Director of Children’s Services, and its Children’s Services Cabinet Member – have been forced to go following a scathing independent report into the murder of Baby P. 

As Balls’ Tory shadow, Michael Gove MP, has just pointed out on Sky News, the same authority was given a “clean bill of health” in a report a year ago.  But that there are other failings in a full report that he has seen  but which has not been made public in this climate of Government secrecy and cover-up. 

Had Cameron not “gone ballistic” at PMQs a few weeks back, Labour would probably have covered up this report and allowed Meehan et al to cling on to their jobs…

Gove can’t say what is in the report as the Met would probably arrest him on a trumped-up charge. 

Why has the Department for Public Prosecutions and the Met not started legal proceedings against those who have resigned, given their culpability in the death of this child?  These people should be arrested, not Damian Green.

And so it goes on.  Ed Balls should reconsider his position and resign – after all, it’s happened under his watch and one of his fellow Ministers was tipped off some time ago by a “whistleblower”.

Kids Company’s Camila Batmangehelidjh has outlined on Sky how there should be a “structural review” of children’s services across the country. The “chronic underfunding” of social services departments and a “lack of leadership of politicians” highlights what she describes as a “political flaw” and which needs a new structure.  Individual social workers should not be vilified, she explains, as it is a flawed and badly structured system across many Social Services departments.

Ms Batmangehelidjh, who is one of the most respected “social entrepreneurs” in helping disadvantaged and vulnerable children, is absolutely spot on.  It has been clear that this is an endemic problem due to the “political flaw” that Ms Batmangehelidjh outlines.

We don’t need any more weasel words from Ed Balls or his ilk – we need action, for the sake of our kids – put in the resources centrally and sort out the structure in these social services departments.  And, most of all, change the “ideology” that Tim Montgomerie bemoans:

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the whole affair is that the fate of Baby P is the claim that all the usual procedures were followed, all the boxes ticked, all the shibboleths observed. There is ideological problem represented by a hostility to adoption by social workers and not only in Haringey.

This proves that it is the system that it is at fault – if we don’t deal with this “political flaw”, while we are fussing about trying to fix the banks, then we as a society will be a lot worse off.  And, for the sake of kids like Baby P, we owe it to them to resolve this endemic “political flaw” and ideology as soon as possible.

So much for “Every Child Matters”

A few years back Labour launched “Every Child Matters” with great fanfare.  It was the policy document that was supposed to make sure there would never again be another Victoria Climbié.

Haringey Council’s social workers’ incompetence, however, has led to the death of Baby P, or Child A, who was murdered in the family home by an evil brute:

The report says that there were “numerous examples” of good practice [RUBBISH] within all agencies involved in the case, but concludes:

“There were many factors which contributed to the inability of the agencies to understand what was happening to Child A.  With the possible exception of the paediatric assessment of 01.08.07, none on their own were likely to have enabled further responses that might have prevented the tragic outcome.”

The report says that just over a week before he died, legal advice was that on the information provided, the threshold for initiating care proceedings had not been met [WHEN SHOULD IT BE?] and adds:

“Most critically Child A was seen on 01.08.07 by a community paediatrician for the purpose of the long awaited development assessment.  Expert medical opinion commissioned during the course of this serious case review concluded that a diagnosis of abuse should have been made at that point.”

It also says:

“This serious case review has revealed clear evidence of appropriate communication between and within agencies as well as weaknesses in specific areas of information flow.”

The review found that “safeguarding structures exist across Haringey agencies and offer a sound framework for the implementation of required procedures, it has also identified scope for improving the detailed application of some processes.”  

The above justification of Labour-run Haringey Council’s overseeing of the murder of a child – and outright incompetence – as well as the poor framework put in place by the Labour Government just shows why we can’t trust Labour with our children.

So much for “Every Child Matters”.  Every child clearly doesn’t matter.

Yes, fix the economy, but please fix society too

Last summer, moved by the murder of an innocent little kid, 11-year old Rhys Jones in Liverpool, I wrote that it was time for the Government to get a grip on teenage gun crime.  Matt Sinclair hits the nail on the head with his analysis of family breakdown and the rise of teenage pregnancy and illegitimacy.

You only have to read this post to see how completely out of touch with the lives of hard-working families some sections of the ‘third estate’ are (despite many of them working and presumably living in LONDON):

The second area of weakness I would highlight is the current Tory fondness for decrying Britain’s “broken society”.

I cannot bear this phrase – as I don’t believe the country as a whole is suffering from social breakdown, despite screaming headlines proclaiming the contrary – and I imagine many centre-ground voters share my displeasure.

It smacks of a carping Opposition-based approach, not of a party ready to govern what remains one of the greatest nations in the world. Please drop it, Dave.

How is society not broken when an 11-year-old can get shot on a nice middle-class estate in Liverpool, if a 16-year-old gets his throat slit by a thug wielding a glass tray from a bakery, and if an 18-year-old boy who was loved by all who knew him (and who had a bright acting career ahead of him) dies at the hands of a murderer outside a pub in a nice commuter suburb of London?  Yes, Sidcup.

Many centre ground voters are actually tearing their hair out in despair, because of what they see around them.  Try wandering round Lewisham or Lambeth at night, where even “good kids” have started carrying knifes to defend themselves against feral youths.  They are scared, so are their parents, so is most of society.

As always, there is a more credible viewpoint in Simon Heffer’s column, where he links youth crime to welfare dependency and the welfare state, and describes society as “destabilised”.  The lack of a father figure in the home in many cases does not help matters (and, after all, Labour MPs essentially abolished fatherhood last week in a notorious parliamentary vote).  Welfare is much adored by the left, as Heffer explains, because it, ‘gives them a clientele to control. All in all, it is a corrupt, corrupting, demoralising and poisonous concept.’  He goes further and says that:

Why is it that the criminal underclass can carry on as it does? It is because the state pays for it to do so. Why do children grow up feeling they have to kill each other at the slightest provocation? Because the state has removed the need for them to grow up in a coherent family unit, in which such feelings would seldom be fed. Why, when sociologists from Charles Murray onwards have linked single parenthood, social and economic failure and crime, does the state still sponsor so extensively single parenthood as a career option for young women? Because it assists the socialist state’s mission to control and expand a clientele.

A lack of responsibility, spending of £620 billion on welfare (in which Heffer admits even Labour MP Denis MacShane can see opportunities for reductions), youth crime spiralling out of control… 

John Redwood has, as always, brilliantly analysed the current state of taxation and spending and concluded that the Government is ‘dithering’ on the issue.  Where better to start than welfare?

Tax cuts would help enhance people’s quality of life and, yes, it is important (absolutely vital, in fact) to fix the economy.  But one of the ways that both the economy and society could be fixed together is by slashing the welfare bill, handing the savings back to tax-payers and encouraging the workshy recipients to go to work – not the folks who are unable to work due to disability or mental health problems.

it is time to sort out two of the greatest ills that afflict the UK today, social breakdown/teenage crime/welfare AND taxation, at the same time.  Not only can people keep more of the money they earn.  But also families can be supported to stay together.  And people can be encouraged to work, rather than be dependent upon welfare, making something positive of their lives.  And youth crime can be stamped out.

You don’t expect baby murderers to ban smacking, do you?

At PMQs the Speaker asked Gordon Brown to use ‘temperate language’.  On this subject I’m afraid I will have to refrain from temperate language.

Yesterday, Brown made a speech about his commitment to liberty, which is a joke given his commitment to increasing the detention limit from 28 days to something like 56 days.  It is a joke, considering his Government’s policies on the liberty of the unborn child.  The liberty to be born.  The right to life.  All thrown aside for the right to a medieval practice that has no place in a civilised country.

Some campaigners, who are often the very same people who support abortion, are furious with the Government for not banning smacking.  I personally could never smack a child, but many parents do; criminalising parents would be asburd.  But do you really expect baby murderers to ban smacking?

The science proves that at 22 and 23 weeks (by the way, around 5 months of pregnancy) babies are not only fully formed, but viable, i.e. they have a chance of survival.  As the brave MP Nadine Dorries points out on her blog, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists study which Dawn Primarolo used to avoid reducing the abortion limit from 24 weeks,

“It failed to mention the Hoekstra study which demonstrates how with good neonatal intervention, 66% of all babies (that is babies born naturally because there may have been medical complications not healthy babies aborted) at 23 weeks live.

“It failed to mention how in the UK at good neonatal units such as UCH London and Hope hospital in Salford, 43% of 23 weekers live.

“Instead it chose to quote a study which averages out births at all hospitals across the UK, which puts the figure at 10 -15%.”

That makes the Labour Government baby murderers (the RCOG are anyway, and they sully the name of doctors), aided and abetted by the likes of Dr Evil Harris MP. 

What exactly happens to a baby (not a foetus, or an embryo, which are dehumanising medical words) when he or she – a potential Ben or Emily – is ripped from the womb?  If not already dead, the baby is murdered by the medical team responsible for the abortion.  We are not here talking about abortion at 5 or 10 weeks, where the baby may look less baby-like though I believe it is equally wrong, but about the killing of a viable baby in the womb (or after being forced from the womb).  Evidence from the US shows that babies feel pain during abortions.

Even Lord Steel, a man who has much blood on his hands for his Private Members Bill to legalise ‘abortion on demand’ in the 60s, is now appalled by the fact that there are around 200,000 abortions per year.  These are due to the social breakdown, and immorality, that has ripped apart the fabric of this country.  Almost 200,000 of our fellow Britons are denied the right to life, so the day after Ms Primarolo’s despicable decision is hardly a day for Brown to make a speech about liberty. 

And, frankly, it would be ludicrous of this Labour Government to ban smacking when it has given the green light to many more murders of babies in the womb who could survive, who are fully formed, but somehow are denied the right to life because they have not yet been born.  Worse still, these murdered little souls will never be able to vote but the babies’ murderous “mothers” do have a vote and that seems to be what the Government is calculating in this decision.  Anyone who cares about the right to babies to life, however, should never vote Labour.

It is time for the Government to get a grip on teenage gun crime

Again there is the heartbreaking image of another child in a football shirt whose life has been ended violently (an image that has moved the nation, just like the earlier killing of 10-year-olds Holly and Jessica), another  family’s lives torn apart.  And yet we are no further on since last year’s murder of Kiyan Prince and that of many other teenagers across the UK.  A feature of the recent murders is that the perpetrators and the victims are both children (usually teenagers).  What is striking – and all the more tragic – about the murder of Rhys Jones is that he appears to have been caught in the crossfire.  And he was only 11.

What is even more alarming is that Croxteth Park, where the murder took place, is a middle-class area (bordering some tough estates, including Croxteth) and one of its councillors is a Liberal Democrat.  The truth is that under Labour the country has become more dangerous, especially if you are young and live in a city (particularly London); and the Government has simply not got a grip on teenage crime.

The Times recently published a factfile revealing that no fewer than 10 kids have been shot or stabbed to death this year already.  Their killers (or, in some cases, alleged killers) are frighteningly young and the young murderers (or alleged murderers) have bleak life stories often involving abusive parents, family breakdown, etc.

The Government needs to get a grip on this menace that is blighting the UK’s cities, which is not something that is likely given the failure of a succession of lacklustre Home Secretaries (John Reid actually looked like making some progress, but didn’t last very long in the job, and Jacqui Smith could still prove herself).  But we are not holding our breath for Labour to make any progress on this issue.  That in itself is a major tragedy.

15.23 Update: An excellent article by Jock Coats argues that Government policy is responsible, and he also points to some helpful insights from Kids’ Company’s Camila Batmanghelidjh in today’s Independent.