A Thumbs Up for a Playground Spending Cut

As the government cuts a spending programme based on playgrounds, parasites across the nation start to bleat "won't someone think of the children?" Here's an example of one such idiot from the BBC news website:

Parent Emma Kane has worked with children in Hook Norton to set up a playground scheme which is now unlikely to go ahead. She said: "It's insane to cut what is such a small amount of money."

The small amount of money is £47,000 in this case, fact fans. And I've just checked - that is a lot of money, particularly when you can get a basic play set from Argos for less than £100.

She said playgrounds were a "soft target" for the government's "drastic cuts."

Except, of course, they're not a soft target in the sense that as soon as the cuts are mentioned, people like this Emma Kane start bleating and statists across the land try to paint the coalition as anti-child. In that respect, this is a tough thing for the government to cut as it creates what the modern politician hates most - bad publicity.

I will concede, however, that Playbuilder - for that is the Orwellian name of this statist project - is a soft target in the sense that it is not essential, and therefore ripe for cutting. But as anyone with even an iota of common sense will tell you, if you've got to make cuts, you cut the non-essential stuff first.

She added: "Playbuilder is unique in that communities had to come together and work together to get the funding, in a perfect example of 'Big Society'.

My own perception of the "Big Society" is that it is meaningless toss, so in that respect I'd say Playbuilder is a perfect example of it.

But the cutting of the programme does not stop communities coming together, pooling resources and creating a playground if they so desire. All this cut is stopping them from doing is expecting that playground to come from a government that uses someone else's money to fund all of its schemes. Basically, this simply means that those who kids would benefit from a playground now have to come up with the money if they really want to have one - rather than expecting the taxpayer to fund it.

"There's lots of disappointed children out there, they keep asking me what's happening and I just don't know what to say to them.

How about "go and play with a football in your back garden?"

"Furthermore, as everyone knows, playgrounds fight childhood obesity. What does it say about the government's strategy to cut projects that promote both health and communities working together?"

Yeah, because the way to fight childhood obesity is to let the government spend thousands on playgrounds. Rather than, I don't know, expecting parents to take some sort of fucking responsibility for their spawn and stop them turning into chunkers without government intervention. Or to put it another way, to act like parents.

This sort of thing exasperates me - it shows just how unimaginative and bovine large swathes of the population in this country have become. People no longer seem able to do anything unless the government does it for them. The government has to buy and build playgrounds. It has to keep children thin. Because it is completely ridiculous to expect parents - those who actually created the fucking children they bleat on endlessly about - to take some responsibility and actually do some fucking parenting, isn't it?

The government was right to cut this programme. The only reason why the decision has attracted any controversy at all (aside from those whipping up controversy for party political reasons) is because far too many people in this country have lost sight of the concept of personal responsibility and have become used to gorging on the teat of a bloated, profligate state.

Kids, Rugby and Risk

Oh, what fresh hell is this?

Rugby scrums should be banned in schools to protect children involved in a sport which is "not safe enough" for them, an expert has warned.

My God? You mean there's a risk attached to a contact sport? Fuck me, this is a revelation.

I mean, sweet Jesus Christ, this can hardly be news to anyone, surely? And to think people paid to have the research carried out. I could have told you that there is a risk of injury to kids playing rugby, and I'd have done it for the price of a pint of Fosters and some pork scratchings.

But the fact that there is a risk and that injuries do happen doesn't mean that something should be banned. After all, we're not talking about hundreds of kids being wounded a day by egg-chasing. No, we're talking about occasional injuries in a game - nothing more dramatic than that. And kids can get injured at any time, in any number of different ways. You cannot ban every single way in which they might possibly get injured. Not unless you stick them in a bubble and don't let them do anything.

Which is the point. Risk and injury are both parts of life. You can try as much as you like to hide this reality from kids, but you're never going to be able to make them perfectly safe and if you try, then you're arguably not preparing them for real life. At some point they're going to have to take a risk. And at some point they are going to be injured. Banning rugby scrums from schools is not going to change that...

The Limitations of Hysteria: What Can Actually Be Done?

Nothing raises the blood pressure of the Great British Public more than the news that a child has been hurt or killed. And when we hear that a child was hurt or killed by another child, well, that is the worst thing in the world. It is bound to create hysteria, anger and unthinking demands that someone does something! Whilst the outpouring of rage and grief can be taken as positive signs that people still care about each other and in particular for the young, such raw emotions seldom lead to sensible or considered pronouncements. When someone shrieks "won't someone think of the children!" they are often unable to think rationally about anything at all. Even the children they seek to protect.

This article is a great example of the sort of strident and impotent ranting I'm talking about. And, unfortunately, it also shows the limitations of all such angry, strident shouting. Take this extract:

How can it be, people will demand to know, that in this affluent civilised society young children are still emerging as monstrous savages? Sixteen years on from the shadow of Jamie Bulger’s death; after nearly 13 years of new Labour and its emphasis on child poverty; and at a time when there has never been more money devoted to protection, education, testing, checking and child development strategies, how on earth could something like this happen?

But we know why. And there really is no point in getting emotional. This horror occurred because the system for intervention in the lives of neglected children is woefully inadequate and intellectually and economically flawed. Too late, too short-term, too wishy-washy, too cheapskate.

Ignoring the fact that claiming you're not going to get emotional and then using such an emotive term as "horror" less that a second later is completely contradictory, the strident nature of the extract shows the real concern and the very real anger felt by the author about these crimes. Unfortunately, the anger seems to be directed against the state rather than the people actually responsible for this crime - the two boys. Yet what could the state actually do? And what warning signs were there about these two kids? Was there anything that truly differentiated them from other kids from underprivileged backgrounds? Was there anything to mark them out from other children whose parents appeared to be neglectful and were struggling to cope? Was there anything that marked them out from similar children in their peer group as potential psychopaths before they attacked?

Of course there wasn't. These children only stood out from the crowd after they had committed their crimes. And whilst we might demand more from local and central government employees, the simple fact is that they would need divine knowledge of the future to prioritise these two over other needy children in the country. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a frustrating thing. And you can't prevent crime retrospectively, just as you can't use precognition as a legal basis to accuse people of potential future crimes.

So, what can be done? If we want to prevent a recurrence, then what should we expect from the state? Our author has a solution:

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, believes that early intervention is critical: that children must be helped before their third birthday to be saved. Can he convince David Cameron of the political merits of such a courageous, compassionate policy shift? We must cross our fingers and hope.

Great. So we're reliant on the radicalism of Iain Duncan Smith. Forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

But let's look at two key questions that arise around this idea of "early intervention." First of all, what does intervention mean? Does it mean advising the parents? Coaching them on *better* parental actions? Because in this case and the case of Baby P, advising the parents wouldn't achieve a great deal. So does intervention mean taking the kids away from their parents? If so, at what point do we move from advising to removal? And is there any evidence that taking these children into state care will actually improve their chances in life? If they are problem children, then it may be very difficult to find a permanent foster placement for them. Are they simply being removed from their homes only to face the same long term, bleak fate as they would have done with their parents, but this time sponsored by the state? We need to know - explicitly - what intervention means and then what good it will do for the kids before we can allow the state any further power over parents and/or their children.

And then who makes the choice of when to intervene? Oh yes, in this case the state should have intervened. But where to draw the line? At what point do kids become vulnerable? Who's going to judge when the children are being harmed by their parenting? Who is going to make the value judgment that their upbringing is not normal? Because, as a strident atheist, I could easily formulate an argument that anyone being raised as a devout Christian is being abused and having their horizons limited and that the state needs to intervene. But those with religious beliefs would point out I am simply reacting to my own prejudices, and have no right to tell them what to believe in or how to raise their kids. And they'd be right. So under the IDS programme, who does make the choice? Surely not Duncan-Smith - who as a socially conservative Catholic would have a very limited and skewered idea both of what normality and a healthy upbringing is. Maybe we can have a checklist of what is right for a child - because that sort of mentality really helps, doesn't it? And even if we can decide who makes the choice, you can guarantee that whatever limits they set will be deeply controversial and still open to vast interpretation. Even with the best of intentions - the saving of vulnerable children - you can be sure that innocent people would suffer, and loving families would be torn apart. And before anyone states that it is worth that risk, think how you would feel if it was your family.

Part of the problem is that, after decades of intrusive state intervention into every part of British life, the population is largely broken and sees the state as something that can make everything ok again. Of course it can't. We have a ludicrously high opinion of the state, that isn't backed up by reality. The sad fact is that it is in the nature of some people - both adults and children - to hurt others. No amount of state intervention is going to change that. The Soviet Union - one of the most controlling, totalitarian regimes that ever existed - still managed to have a prolific serial killer. And - on top of that - we need to get a grip on the idea that state intervention can be just as damaging as the state failing to intervene.

There are no simple answers to the questions posed by this sort of event; no matter how stridently the voices of impotent rage in the aftermath might demand them.