Shoesmith strikes at Balls and executive power

laverda

Perhaps Miliband will demand Balls resigns 'before the day is out' ?

StrongholdBarricades

No one has yet made the case for the appeal, and any legal action launched by the government could simply be seen as a vanity project.

It has been established that this person was not given proper recourse in law to defend herself, the law courts decision does not suggest that she should not have been sacked.

Far better to accept the judgement, ensure that proceedures are better in the future and ask Mr Balls why he thought that "bullying" was a good option to get rid of an employee. The judgement pours scorn on Mr Balls for simply not following accepted personnel practices

Santorum

Agree entirely with the article. We all rely on the law to protect us from government power. Balls' decision was entirely political and, I thought at the time, rather grotesque.

JohnOfEnfield

The image of Balls looking intently at Brown from the very end of the front bench when this issue was raised by Cameron spoke volumes.

An apparatchik determined to rescue his beleaguered boss at whatever the cost. Politically, constitutionally, legally and economically. Shoesmith was an obvious target so she was "decapitated".

scoundrel40

There is a saying, 'empty vessels make most noise' how this woman can be so loud in what she is doing, is beyond me. Nothing will make me be sympathetic towards her. I just feel extremely sick at how she has got away with things. Appalling. Our justice system seems all wrong to me. Appalling.

Holly ......

laverda.11.41.
Nice thought,but that aint going to happen,
Balls is now shadow chancellor and no longer
liable for any previous action by him in a previous post held and under a different leader.
I can hear them now...That would be'unfair'.

Maddy1

My silly lords see this as the thin end of the wedge, if "she", has the responsibility and is punished where will this all end? Perhaps our judges will held responsible by the electorate, for their incompetent actions and where will we be then?
Would we have to import Catholic, right wing judges, from Warsaw along with all the bus drivers?

J.Stewart

I do not know how this woman has the brass neck to face the public she should retire to a convent and contemplate what she will say when she meets up one daywith the unfortunate child.

MattNW5

I just listened to the interview again on the BBC website. Highly recommended - she is a seriously impressive performer. If it's right that 54 other children died that year from abuse or neglect then quite clearly you can't sack the head of every one of those local authorities, removing pension rights etc. etc. as was done to her. How on earth do you attract anyone even half competent into social work if that is the threat hanging over you? Yes absolutely you need systems to weed out incompetent social workers, as you do teachers and other public servants. But one tragic death doesn't prove anything about systems, and it sounds like there were plenty of satisfactory reviews of the systems in Haringey under her control. Absolutely get rid of incompetent people - but based on that performance I have very serious doubts that Sharon Shoesmith is one of them.

TomTom

Ed Balls should start to understand the difference between Due Process and Arbitrary Government. WE had that concept even before the EU took over Employment Law. Funny for a country that has Asylum Hearings and cannot simply deport, Balls thinks he is an Absolute Monarch who can dispense with courtiers on a whim.

PROCESS is what is being upheld by the Court of Appeal. Just as Exclusions from School had an appeal process when the Thatcher Government was warned about legal implications of not doing so.

Ed Balls should apologise to the House of Commons for abuse of office.

Rod Smith

Ms Shoesmith may have been a poor manager. She may have deserved to be sacked. Maybe she should have resigned. But she did not deserve summary, unfair dismissal by a politician intent on the political process of looking tough to appease the media. I would have thought Spectator readers would want to defend individual rights against a Government seeking to ignore natural justice for overtly party political motives

denis cooper

Oh for God's sake, either you believe in the rule of law or you don't, and it seems that some of those commenting here don't and would prefer arbitrary rule - except of course when it was applied to them.

dercavalier

Sharon Shoesmith hasn't got away with anything. Some months before the incident her department was PRAISED by OFSTED. She became a scapegoat after the Daily Wail and Daily Bellylaugh headed up a disgraceful campaign of innuendo and exaggeration of her role in the matter. According to them it was Sharon Shoesmith who killed the boy not his feckless parents.
Yes she was in charge of the department and as such should perhaps have been sacked after due process but so should a large number of others involved; in the Police, NHS, OFSTED and the Chidrens' Department.
It makes me sick to see the right wing media dancing up and down about her possibly £1.0m compensation when bankers who have brought the world to its knees are walking away with £multi-millions when they are sacked. Why isn't the RW media making a huge fuss about that?

Steve Brown

Balls is an idiot and Shoesmith has correctly won her legal case.However she is truly an appalling woman without a trace of sorrow or remorse.

Gawain

I used to think that Balls was a charismatic psychopath. This story would suggest that he is merely a psychopath.

Vulture

@ denis cooper

But, Denis dear, surely it matters who makes and who applies the law? Who, after all, guards the Guardians? The 'rule of law' is a cant phrase too often trotted out. Hitler's Germany had judges in robes who applied the law ( Roland Freisler for example). Stalin's Russia had a written constitution which on paper looked the fairest, freeist and most democratic in the world. In Comrade Vyshinsky it had a prosecutor of genius who acted according to Soviet law.

Yet both states were barbaric tyrannies.

Few would doubt that today there is something seriously rotten about our bench of Judges. The Law in their hands, therefore, is something worse than an Ass.

It is a poison-tipped arrow aimed straight at our hearts.

Occasional Ostrich

@MattNW5

What was really unimpressive was the way Humphrys just keeled over and allowed Ms SS to determine the agenda.

Clear Memories

Whilst I consider Balls to be the nearest thing to a walking penis and Shoesmith to represent the very worst example of a public servant with no thought for anybody but herself, nevertheless, this a dangerous case where a Judge has overturned the decision of an elected Minister.

To some extent, the rights and wrongs of the case are irrelevent if one accepts Balls reflected the visceral wishes of the public at that time, as I believe he did, albeit unknowingly.

We've had the judiciary inventing privacy laws without the input of Parliament whilst this week, their arrogant worships have suggested the media should not report the proceedings of Parliament if it cuts across any ruling their petty minds have invented and now they are overturning the decision of an elected Minister (no matter how much a PM's arse-licker he might have been).

Surely now is the time to dump the Human Rights laws and throw out all those Judges contaminated by having worked with this fundamentally anti-democratic legislation.

Andrew Kennard

Balls should be made to pay Shoesmith's compensation and HMG´s legal fees. It was his decision ,in order to look good on television, to ignore due process in this case. He should have the money after all the expenses he and his wife have milked from the tax payer.

Fergus Pickering

Do I understand you right, dercavalier? It i OK for this woman to get a cool million for being a disaster because she is a left-wing disaster, which is quite different from a banker who is a right-wing disaster.

Salcombe

That Balls succumbed to media and political pressure is clear. It appealed to his populist and bullying traits and from that point, irrespective of employment law or Shoesmiths strategic or operational departmental failings (if there were any), she was the scapegoat. Several agencies and individual social workers failed this child on this occasion. It is worth remebering that serious injuries to children, including deaths, run at 50-100 cases per year.

What is also a concern is that the second emergency Ofsted report similarly was doctored and 'sexed up' for political expediency.

The on-going crisis in Children services since Baby P is the really sad consequence of the Sun and Daily Mails vitriolic campaigns in 2008.

bojimbo

She allowed baby Peter to die but she will get millions in compensation .

Jane

I have yet to read the judgement but from reports it appears that the Court did not state that Ms Shoesmith should not have lost her job but that the employer had not followed the right process. That apparently involved her right to reply to the Ofsted report which damned her department. Hardly a ringing endorsement of her abilities nor one that claers her of responsibility.

There is something wrong. I am tired of reading about managers earning huge sums of money not being held to account if something happens in their department. We have had Senior Civil Servants, NHS Managers etc etc all making a mess of their jobs and being successful in appeals when they (the very, very few)are removed from office. It seems that we are unable to remove public servants from the payroll when they seriously fail in their duties. Lets hope the Appeal clarifies the situation for the future.

It was wrong of Ms Shoesmith to state that 54 children had died that year. How many were due to failure? The death of Baby P was due to her department, medical and police failings. This is particularly galling when the same department had been reported on for another child's death a few years before. Sloppy and poor management and as she is in charge and is paid accordingly she should be responsible.

A hollow victory in my opinion.

MattNW5

@OO

Really can't agree with that at all. Humphreys was trying to play an horribly oversimplified "have you no shame"? Daily Mail approach, and she had to move him away from that in order to make the entirely valid points on shared responsibility, on political timing and on the dodgy nature of the later Ofsted report that were absolutely needed to go some way toward displaying the real complexity of the situation. What would you rather - that he just attacked and she whinged hopelessly about how it was everyone's fault but hers? That certainly would have made life easier for some of the kneejerk merchants on here.

Nicholas

We have UKIP to thank for the fact that Reichschancellor Balls is a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

SamanthaKnot

@MattNW5 "If it's right that 54 other children died that year from abuse or neglect then quite clearly you can't sack the head of every one of those local authorities, removing pension rights etc. etc. as was done to her. How on earth do you attract anyone even half competent into social work if that is the threat hanging over you?"

You absolutely CAN and SHOULD sack each and everyone of those Heads of Services that fatally fail the ones they are meant to be serving. How on earth do you attract people who spend their working day doing their job rather than redefining their job as saving their own arse?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Clear Memories
May 28th, 2011 1:32pm
The whole Establishment stinks. The ill-named Balls would be better named Prick. He literally blew it for that wretched woman to be removed from the public forum, and she will now enriched, and bloated up with self-righteousness continue to cause damage whereever she is employed. She states her conscience is clean. Shoesmith maintains that she is completely innocent, the fault lies with the department she ran. One might have asked Hitler, and would have received the same answer. As Nietzsche stated, "Only the innocent feel guilt". Concerning the judges: Appeal Judge Neuberger is of the unpleasant ilk that is concerned with personal advancement and the receiving of honours. Far better suited to the EU than the British judiciary, the decision to find in favour of Shoesmith could hardly have surprised an urbane observer. Frankly the whole issue stinks.

Dony

She says she does not blame....we do we blame her for the death of a young baby who protection was ignored by her dept and staff. The buck stops with her you cant take the top jobs and then blame all your employees when things go wrong. She disgusts me and will now get a large pay out the legal system in this country is turning into a joke just protects the rich and powerful. It was 100% right to sack this woman incompetence was rife through her dept and ultimately she preceded over this culture.

jon dee

Having commented previously on "Gove to appeal..." regarding the Humphrys interview, Shoestring disclosed convincingly, enough to suggest that there is certainly "more to this case than meets the eye."

Despite being confronted by a hectoring, ill-researched questioner, the two substantive points you mention, came over loud and clear, and with alarm bells ringing.

Had we previously been aware of Shoesmith's ongoing work with the government, post-Peter's death ?

The full role of Ofsted in the affair,the timed content of their reports and release, and the full involvement of their chief, need further examination and exposure.

In the midst of a media storm, did Cameron's taunting of Gordon Brown cause the latter to panic and prompt Balls and his friend at Ofsted,to bring about Shoestring's hasty dismissal ?

Balls vain posturing before the TV cameras was the crass action of an incompetent bully. Even scapegoats can't be sacked in that way.

Regardless of the appeal, who now has the courage and determination to find out the full truth behind this affair ?

denis cooper

Vulture, dear, we're not talking about the Nazis, we're just talking about the legally required procedures for dismissal of an employee.

MattNW5

@SamanthaKnot I prostrate myself before your utter perfection, seeing as how obviously nothing has ever gone remotely wrong under your watch. Would you sack every doctor for whom someone died on the operating table too? I suggest you acquaint yourself with the real world. The tragic outcome does not prove a flawed process; the attempt to prove a flawed process was clearly done after the event and with a deliberate agenda as far as I can see.

Dennis Churchill

“We examined the conduct of our social workers, we found a disciplinary against them, but they weren't sacked”
A baby, Peter Connelly, died after a life of pain and no doubt fear---and they weren’t sacked!
What would they have had to do to be sacked joined the BNP?
Officials must be held personally responsible when their negligence results in death and injury ,just as directors of companies are.
At the very least they should be surcharged for the cost of Inquiries and any damages awarded against their employers.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Jane
May 28
According to this poster, it seems that senior management and civil servants cannot be removed very easily. If the only certainty of ending such a position is death, then I pray that Shoesmith has a very short time left in this world.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

denis cooper
May 28th, 2011 3:27pm
Many of us believe we are living through a marxist/fascist regime, with corrupt government and judiciary, a modern day dictatorship with the elements of Hitler and Stalin tailored to fit contemporary despots.

Simon Stephenson.

SamanthaKnot : 2.42pm

"You absolutely CAN and SHOULD sack each and everyone of those Heads of Services that fatally fail the ones they are meant to be serving."

So, what, you'ld agree with sacking every Chief Constable in a police area where an unlawful death has occurred? And every lifeguard on every beach where someone has drowned? And every surgeon who has had a patient die in theatre?

The answer is to attempt to close the yawning gap between the expectations of the general public, and what human beings with limited resources are capable of doing. Note the qualification limited resources - because in many cases, it's possible to improve results by increasing the allocation of resources, but in a world where resources are finite - i.e. the one in which we live - increasing resources to improve outcomes in one area almost always means reducing resources elsewhere, with the almost inevitable deterioration of outcome there.

If we are really to make progress as a society, the public must be disabused of the thought that because it's possible to make improvements in one area, this can be done without cost in other areas, and that because there is, therefore, never any difficulty in justifying it, those who disagree are just pedants or quibblers.

David Ossitt

May I come at this from a slightly different tack; I spent my entire working life being successful in retail trade and in bank finance management, both of these career paths despite my job titles (some very grand), were in their very essence in selling.

To sell you need to have certain skills; high on that list of skills is having the ability to read people, to be very successful in selling this skill needs to be instinctive, polished and to be accurate.

When reading people for the first time most of the senses are used, much can be read by observing the individual, such as eye contact or lack of, body movement graceful or clumsy, their dress, is it appropriate for the occasion, are they clean and well turned out, are they wholesome, is their smile genuine. Then we have our sense of smell, are they clean, and then touch what kind of hand shake do they offer. What do they say, when do they say it and in what tone of voice, just as important what do they not say.

And then we have our own instinct do we trust them, like them, believe in them, can we have confidence in them.

After saying all of this; I have to admit, that in forming my own opinion on Sharon Shoesmith I can only form that opinion on what I have read she has said or what I have heard her say on television and radio and of course on observing her body movement and facial expression on photographs and on the news videos.

That said; I think that she typical of the breed of management at the top of all of our public sector, men and women who are happy to take obscenely high salaries, bloated pensions, ridiculously high perks but never ever take the responsibility when the shit hits the fan.

I also think that she was totally unsuited to the job that she held and further more I think that she is a truly nasty piece of work.

SamanthaKnot

@ MattNW5 & Simon Stephenson

It would help if you devised examples of posts that are actually comparable to the post of Head of Children Services and of events which are comparable to a person having been brought to fix a department responsible for fatally failing one child, failing to do that exact job so spectacularly that the exact same thing happens again.

Simon Stephenson ... what use will more resources be if they are used by individuals displaying the lack of integrity that this woman has?

Occasional Ostrich

@MattNW5

One death is not, I agree, evidence of a flawed process, but 54 deaths nationwide in the same year, as we are given to understand, indicates to me a serious weakness somewhere high in the system. But, of course, it is probably the duty of the government, in the form of Goolies, to ensure procedures are amended to address that. But Goolies, like some of the posters with whom you cross swords, is never wrong, and consequently could not make those amendments, because that would be admitting that, on his watch, the existing system was not the best that could be achieved.

SamanthaKnot

Can I just point out that the judgement is that Ed Balls ballsed up, not that Shoesmith shouldn't have been sacked or that the Ofsted report which caused her to be sacked was wrong.

Its rather weird that people here are talking as though she has been cleared of all responsibility for the failings of the department she headed and that this is just.

Simon Stephenson.

David Ossitt : 4.46pm

"That said; I think that she [Sharon Shoesmith] typical of the breed of management at the top of all of our public sector, men and women who are happy to take obscenely high salaries, bloated pensions, ridiculously high perks but never ever take the responsibility when the shit hits the fan."

Boo to the public-sector, eh?

And the Goodwins, the Stevensons, the Hornbys and the McKillops of this world, the bankers, the executives of the ratings agencies, the regulators, the CDS-devising lawyers, the Gaussian copula formula worshippers, the stockbrokers, the momentum traders, the financial journalists, the politicians, many of whom accepted "obscenely high salaries, bloated pensions" and "ridiculously high perks" - precisely how much responsibility did any of these take for their part in the shit hitting the fan with the collapse of the financial infrastructure, on their watch, in 2008?

I can't say I've noticed a huge amount of remorse, nor apologies, nor repayments of salaries/bonuses given out as rewards for results that were so obviously mis-stated. Still, there's always time, I suppose.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson.
May 28th, 2011 5:47pm
Simon, what hurts is the deaths of innocent little children. One child in particular, Baby P broke the hearts of many tough citizens reading his story. The bitterness shown by naby here is that so much money was given to a woman running a department, that made 60, yes 60, visits and together with the cursed NHS doctors could not see he had a broken spine and was seriously abused. To be crude, sod the money, that's not what hurts, it is the little children, all represented by little Baby P, whose face will forever me fresh in my memor

Simon Stephenson.

SamanthaKnot : 5.19pm

"Simon Stephenson ... what use will more resources be if they are used by individuals displaying the lack of integrity that this woman has?"

Well, obviously very little, but I think, outside the tabloid press, that Ms Shoesmith's integrity, or lack of it, is still to be determined.

Ruby Duck

David Ossitt : 4.46pm

"That said; I think that she [Sharon Shoesmith] typical of the breed of management at the top of all of our public sector, men and women who are happy to take obscenely high salaries, bloated pensions, ridiculously high perks but never ever take the responsibility when the shit hits the fan."

Second-rate sharks preying on the easy meat of the public sector.

I think it's the sanctimony that hurts most.

SamnthaKnot

@Simon Stephenson

Because bankers demonstrated no accountability, public servants should be exempt too.

That sum up your argument?

Which part of that doesn't read as "Two wrongs make a right" to you?

TrevorsDen

Doney - ' The buck stops with her you cant take the top jobs and then blame all your employees when things go wrong.'

I absolutely agree - but Shoesmith was just another employee running the decrepit Politically Correct system.

Even if she had the inclination (which we must doubt) - just how easy would it have been to institute proper aggressive and active discipline over individuals in her department.

To Labours shame, Baby P died because of a tick-box culture.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Please forgive the lousy typing in my last posting, and the final word was intended to be 'memory', but once again the laptop became independent.

Publius

@Anne Wotana Kaye 1
"it is the little children, all represented by little Baby P"

-- Do pull yourself together.

dercavalier

Fergus Pickering "Do I understand you right, dercavalier? It i OK for this woman to get a cool million for being a disaster because she is a left-wing disaster, which is quite different from a banker who is a right-wing disaster"

Typical right wing spin on my comment. Shoesmith's compensation will actually be comprised of loss of earnings since she was unlawfully sacked and reinstatement of the pension rights that were illegally taken from her. If it amounts to a million so be it but that amount hardly ranks with the multi-million pay offs that failed bankers obtained and are still receiving for their disasters.

Simon Stephenson.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 : 6.08pm

With respect, I was answering David Ossitt's general assertion about the behaviour of public-sector leaders in response to bad happenings in their areas of responsibility.

What we are all trying to do, I'm sure, is to develop a structure of process in which the horrors of human existence, including, but by no means limited to, the abuse of infant children, are kept at a level that is as low as is reasonably achievable, in a world of limited resources and human fallibility. Total eradication is not possible, but what is possible is a commitment that our intervention in this area is maintained at the highest possible level of professionalism, and that we understand that political input and responsibility beyond the allocation of funding may be detrimental to the goal of sustaining this ultra-professionalism.

My case is that the mainstream's seeming requirement to personalise every failure, and every shortcoming, prevents us from recognising the many occasions when the people in charge are not the principal cause of the failures - that these people may be as professional as it's possible to be, but their professionalism is thwarted by weaknesses and imperfections in the processes under which they are required to work. That's all. I'm not seeking to blame "the system" for everything that goes wrong. It's just that sometimes "the system" is responsible, and this usually implies that there are personal shortcomings away from those who are directly in the firing line - personal shortcomings which are too often left unnoticed in the frenzy to attribute blame to whoever seems intuitatively to be the most obvious candidate.

Hexhamgeezer

Dennis Churchill @ 3:40pm is spot on. Be exposed as a BNP member in Haringey or elsewhere and you will be sacked. That same ideology dictates that society's scum, must not be condemned, confronted, challenged, or sanctioned and if children die as a result, sad but, there you go. This ideology brilliantly diffuses responsibilty to homeopathic levels both internally and through the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangement system.

OFSTED are a jobsworth joke. I wouldn't be suprised if they did beef up a report which would normally go through on the nod but as soon as a bit of light is shed on their timeserving crap they panic and prepare something a little closer to the truth.

Simon Stephenson.

SamanthaKnot : 6.36pm

"Because bankers demonstrated no accountability, public servants should be exempt too.

That sum up your argument?"

No.

Read it again and have another go.

David Ossitt

Simon Stephenson.

“Boo to the public-sector, eh?”

Hello Simon, no, not at all but after a lifetime of management in the private sector, it does irk somewhat when one reads or hears of incompetence at very high levels and throughout all of the grades of the whole public-sector.

As an illustration of what I am talking about and admittedly I am completely changing the subject.

Because of the strength of public-sector teachers unions only fifteen teachers have been dismissed for incompetence in the past ten years, it is estimated that 4% of existing teachers simply can not teach, what figure would that be I wonder.

AAE

The Left are obsessed with Systems, whether in pursuit of one so perfect where human frailty or blinkered dogma can do no harm I'll leave in the air for now. I can't see that more resources would make any difference at all. Would 120 visits rather than 60 to Baby P in 8 months have saved him? No more than paying nurses more would induce them not to walk past their patients lying in squalor. But the problem is the System. It recruits politically. I can't imagine say an ex-nun and still practising Catholic would get an appointment like Shoesmith's, so for all the non-discriminatory employment legislation the potential employment pool is catastrophically limited to those who profess allegiance (and this is often a contractual obligation) to those laughable and mutually contradictory concepts of equality and diversity. Was the doctor who couldn't spot Baby P's broken back appointed because she boasted exemplary medical qualifications and experience, or because she was black and a woman, or simply because she was cheaper than the others? (Didn't she as a matter of routine not ask the poor lad to wiggle his fingers and toes? Or didn't the resources stretch to such rigour?) The System protects its own when it should be protecting the manifestly unprotected. If everyone up and down the chain of management was held absolutely responsible, then perhaps they'd do what they were paid for, honour their oft vaunted holier-than-thou vocation and stop the sheer disgrace of blaming an inanimate System.

Jill Armstead

I applaud the Court of Appeal's decision: Sharon Shoesmith's public dismissal by Ed Ball's was a disgraceful act and a monstrous breach of natural justice. It is likely that she would have had to take the ultimate responsibility for her department's failings and quit, but like any citizen of this country, she was entitled to a fair hearing. I thought she handled herself very well on the Today programme and given that Haringey is probably a social worker's nightmare, she probably did as good job as any head of children's services.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson.
May 28th, 2011 7:13

Bravo, written like a contemporary British professional bureaucrat. All that is missing are genuine compassion and human emotion, and those strangely enough are qualities that don't need funding.
AAE
May 28th, 2011 8:12pm
Delves into this in an erudite manner. Would extra funding i.e. 120 visits instead of 60 revealed the torment Baby P was suffering? Would extra funding soften the hearts of so-called nurses ignoring critically ill patients?
Publius
May 28th, 2011 7:01pm
Yes, my typing was awful. I did apologise, but I obviously offended you.

Hexhamgeezer

Jill Armstead @ 8:21pm

'Sharon Shoesmith's public dismissal by Ed Ball's was a disgraceful act and a monstrous breach of natural justice.'

No. What is disgraceful and monstrous is the lethal treatment dished out to Peter Connolly while social workers and social security provided the wherewithal and support to carry it out.

Disgraceful also the sense of entitlement Shoesmith feels having presided over the sort of regime that facilitates this.

I wonder how many of her strident supporters are parents.

Fergus Pickering

dercavalier - a million sounds a lot of money to me, but then I'm probably not as rich as you. You say she is ENTITLED to all this, but why? She seems ignorant, stupid, loud-mouthed and overpaid. Like the rest of us she is entitled to nothing but six feet of earth.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

I think what disgusts and saddens me is that Shoesmith has put so much effort and so much time in clawing her way back. If only a percentage of this energy had been used to protect the children she was paid to care for, then the outcome of the Peter P tragedy would have been very different.

Simon Stephenson.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 : 10.50pm

Perhaps there should have been two separate discussions - one for how awful it all was, and the other for how best we should respond to it.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson.
May 29th, 2011 11:16am
Somehow, Simon, I think you are taking the piss! Correct me if I'm wrong.

dercavalier

Fergus Pickering "...She seems ignorant, stupid, loud-mouthed..."
That would seem to better apply to you. Anytime I have heard Shoesmith speak she comes across as highly intelligent. And nowhere in any of my posts did I say she was ENTITLED (your capitals) to anything. Only that as a result of the judgement she is now due backpay and re-instatement of pension rights.
And finally my view is that she had to go because the buck in her department stopped with her. But only after due process and along with investigation into and sacking of all the others who failed the baby, in the Police, NHS, and various Goverment Departments. To prevent their embarassment, she was scapegoated as a result of the hordes at the Telegraph and Mail baying for her blood .

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

dercavalier
May 29th, 2011 11:57am
Joseph Goebbels was also intelligent. He didn't stop at sanctioning the murder of millions, he also destroyed his own large family.

Simon Stephenson.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 : 11.22am

No, in no way was I taking the piss, but of course I'm aware that there are a large number of people whose dominant thoughts are very different from mine.

Fergus Pickering

dercavalier, youmust be some sort of a social worker. Everybody else hates her. I claim my care vouchers.

Kennybhoy

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 and AAE

God bless both of you.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson.
May 29th, 2011 1:37pm
Simon,
This is a most distasteful case, and I'm sorry that I've entered into debate about it. If there was something constructive to do to prevent such things happening in the future, that would be energy well spent. Whatever you think, or I think, or anybody else thinks I'm afraid nothing will improve. The rotten social services, police, NHS, education officials and especially the judiciary will continue in their usual self-protecting vile manner.

Simon Stephenson.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 : 6.27pm

I'm more hopeful than you, because I believe that with a change of understanding things can get better. The change of understanding, however, is that elitism works, and democratic/political domination doesn't. What we need to re-understand is that complex issues are best dealt with by expert professionals, and that political involvement needs to be restricted to a much less detailed role of objective setting and review.

It's heading in the opposite direction to where we've been going in recent years, I know, but it needs to be realised that democratic politics needs to be about ensuring that the mainstream is served, not that it is obeyed.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson.
May 29th, 2011 8:22pm
Simon, I agree with you on what's needed. But whilst I've always been a supporter of Elitism, I cannot see this government following a really different road from NuLabour. Witness the nonsense going on about giving children from 'deprived' homes priority on schools, thus making the local children in need of finding a school travel further away. I agree with your solutions, but I am not optimistic that they will be applied in the very near future. We need a real Tory government and the best professionals to advise and set up urgently needed standards.

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley

Wouldn't things be generally better and cheaper all round if the lady had taken her retirement pension on the grounds of ill-health ie because she couldn't do her normal job due to the effects of all this stress? This way perhaps she could have done as is done eg in the NHS by retiring and then getting another NHS job.

Ignoramus

I have read the Spectator off and on for about 35 years. Many of you are surprisingly ill informed and poorly educated. Before any of you criticise the judges in the Shoesmith case, read the judgment in the Court of Appeal. It is free; http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/642.html. When you have read and understood the lead judgment by Maurice Kay LJ (no communist he), comment by all means. Otherwise, say nothing.