David Cameron's Watford Playground Problem

Carroll Barry-Walsh

Alex, It's not just "banning parents from children's playgrounds unless they've undergone a criminal background check to prove that they're not paedophiles". It's banning parents from looking after THEIR OWN CHILDREN in a playground unless they're CRB checked. Not just absurd but sinister. With this logic why not ban parents from looking after their own children AT ALL unless they're CRB-checked?

Arguments about local government are the least of our worries. We need less government all round.

Daniel Lionsden

You are right to say that the Tories need to tackle the underlying culture if they are to make inroads with localism, but I think that cultural remit needs to go much wider than merely getting people to take local government seriously or critiquing the irresponsibility of the press. When the people in (local) government have lost any sense of perspective, are cowed into towing a pc line and are incapable of much rational thought, giving more power to them is like giving matches to children.
The conservatives need to address the culture in general, but things are now so far gone that that would require a cultural revolution on a Chairman Mao level.

JohnBUK

Alex, agree totally. Local accountability is the way to go (a la USA). It needs local tax and voting for the key local rolls on a regular basis.
Yes, it'll take a while to work through but if people see the link between their tax and local service (or lack of it) then they'll become more interested in who is performing and who isn't.
The papers can then go and hang if they produce rubbish.

True Bred Pomponian

These policies are not implemented by elected councillors. They are implemented by unsackable PC council officers. Councillors will need the power to sack council staff before any change is possible.

daniel maris

Well you will find if you look into this more deeply that it is the government and the ever resourceful lawyer class that will have caused this problem.

Teh government has placed a duty on local authorities to safeguard children. There will be guidance that says this applies to all services, and councils must review how they go about doing that. Some lawyer will have been asked about play areas and given the advice pointing out that if the Council failed to provide a safe environment they will be liable to civil actions with awards against them running into millions of pounds if serious harm results.

I haven't seen a pic of the play area but I suspect it might be in some way a bit more elaborate than your normal play area with maybe enclosed buildings or some such.

It's easy to bash local authorities, but councillors are faced with difficult decissions when they are obliged to follow (mountainous multi-layered) government guidance to the letter or face Paxman grillings, court action and huge damages awards. It's up to central government to set the tone.

Kevyn Bodman

'Seventy-five per cent of the money spent locally comes from the Treasury.There is virtually no link between taxation,representation and expenditure at local level.This disconnection has several malign consequences.'
So say Carswell and Hannan in 'The Plan',and they go on to say what those malign consequences are.

None of it is rocket science, the great quality that Carswell and Hannan have displayed is not so much their clarity of thinking, impressive though that is, but their cojones in saying what needs to be said.
Cameron hasn't got the cojones.

As for Watford, I would recommend that a group of parents, together, take their children to the park and simple brush the play rangers aside and stay in the play area.
The Watford council policy is absurd, it should not be obeyed, it should be openly flouted.

Amadeus Plonquer

Will someone please remind me, is it still legal to take children into a Catholic church?

Nicholas

Councils - and government - seem to have lost the ability to conduct effective risk assessments. The worst case scenario is used as the default basis for all legislation and regulation and the obsession for safeguarding/security trumps all impositions on daily life. There used to be a balance between the needs of security/safety and the unhindered transactions or ordinary people. The balance has now become weighted heavily in favour of the security/safety and the impositions on ordinary people, whilst unpopular and moaned about, are largely accepted. In fact it has become a catch-all cudgel for cowing people and as many people as rail against it wring their hands and bleat something must be done.

I'm not sure how this has come about but it seems to be linked to a hysteria in public policy making and a lack of mature, reasoned, thinking. The immaturity may have something to do with ageism, the education system and the media, the latter two which do not seem to aspire to high ideals but instead to embrace the nannyism and paranoia. Certainly the threat and fear of litigation and the power of lawyers (including those masquerading as politicians) has much to do with it.

Europe doesn't help because its legislative machinery seems to work like the barmiest, commiest, "something must be done", parochial council in a town hall near you.

davidke

"These policies are not implemented by elected councillors. They are implemented by unsackable PC council officers. Councillors will need the power to sack council staff before any change is possible."
But I thought officials took their instructions from the elected councillors. Is that not true ?

De Rigueur

Time to ban children.

What would the peados do then?

Ah...but then the busytbodies
would be out of a job!

Oh how tricky it is to be human.

Anne Wotana Kaye

I can recall some dreadful cases where children are the guilty paries. Young boys torturing a toddler before throwing him onto a trainline, where he was killed. Other young children torturing and hanging smaller children. Stabbings, clubbings, bullying of the most cruel nature. Rapes by young boys and girls, thirteen year old boys impregnating girls, bullies driving youngsters to commit suicide, the list is endless. Perhaps children entering playgrounds should be checked to see whether they have police clearance. I doubt that this would happen, because it just isn't politically correct. Above all, Nu Labour can never believe that their long regime has in many cases produced a race of immoral, dull, lazy, sick adults, who in turn have spawned equally rotten offspring.