Children

Thursday

James Forsyth

David Aaronovitch and the social conservative consensus

David Aaronovitch is one of the preeminent voices of the liberal-left in this country. He is no social conservative and has been dismissive of those who want a lower time-limit for abortion. But today he wrote something that reminded me of that famous Peggy Noonan column about the Columbine massacre and ‘the ocean in which our children swim.’ Aaronovitch writing about the Times’ investigation into sex gangs says: ‘Sometimes I look at what the surrounding culture says to our kids and wonder whether we are mad. On the one hand we can be persuaded only with difficulty to give them decent sex education, so terrified are we by their latent

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

The complex parentage of Elton John’s baby

The birth of Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish John gave that of Christ a run for its money in the broadcast news over Christmas. In Ireland, where I was, the newsreader declared that the singer Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, had had their first child. Hang on, I thought. Not so. Some woman, and possibly two – bear with me – has had a baby with one of them. And as it turned out, the birth mother was a client of the Center for Surrogate Parenting based in Encino, California, which has been providing surrogacy arrangements for gay would-be parents since 1989. Elton John and David Furnish will, I’d have thought,

Saturday

Juliet Townsend

Round and round the garden

Juliet Townsend finds that children’s arcane playground rituals have survived television, texting and computer games When Iona and Peter Opie published their groundbreaking work The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren in 1959, they started their preface by pointing out that Queen Anne’s physician, John Arbuthnot, friend of Swift and Pope, observed that nowhere was tradition preserved pure and uncorrupt ‘but among School-boys, whose Games and Plays are delivered down invariably from one generation to another.’ Theirs was the first study to establish that this was still largely true in the mid 20th century. Steve Roud now brings the story up to date, and seeks to find out whether this rich

Saturday

Diana Hendry

The loss of innocents

Here are two novels about that most harrowing and haunting of subjects — children who go missing. Here are two novels about that most harrowing and haunting of subjects — children who go missing. Rachel Billington’s Missing Boy is Dan, a 13-year- old runaway. Dan’s disappearance marks the beginning of a nightmare for his parents, Eve and Max, plus aunt Martha. Has Dan run away or has he been kidnapped? Will he be found? The if, where and how are the questions that torment them. As Ronnie, the police liaison officer puts it, though families vary, when there’s a missing child the suffering is always the same, a pattern of

Saturday

Martin Bright

How Does the Public Sector Deliver?

Hats off to my good friend Julia Hobsbawm for sparking a debate over delivery in the public sector via her Editorial Intelligence organisation. I had the pleasure of chairing a discussion as part of her D4Deliver campaign on Thursday and you can listen to the podcast here. The top-notch panel included Mary Riddell of the Daily Telegraph, Chris Melvin, Chief Executive of Reed in Partnership and Octavius Black, who runs Mind Gym. But the tone was set by Nick Jarman, who was brought in as Interim Director of Children’s Services at beleaguered Doncaster Council after a series of scandals. Before we began he said his local authority could have provided

Friday

James Forsyth

Publishing the serious case review in the Edlington case is the best way to prevent more awful mistakes

The Edlington case is shocking and depressing to think about. But I would urge you to watch Gavin Esler’s interview of Ed Balls on Newsnight where he challenged Balls over his reasons for not publishing the full case review. Newsnight, who were leaked a copy of the full case review in the Edlington case, pressed Balls on why the full report was not being published when the summary was misleading and did not highlight some of the biggest problems. Balls, as the government does whenever it is challenged on this point, invoked the support of the NSPC, Lord Laming (whose record, as Iain Martin points out, isn’t that great) and