Another victim of Saturday Night Blame culture

Firing Sharon Shoesmith will do nothing to make children safer. Nor will calling for public inquiries, naming and shaming those who directly killed Baby P, bemoaning the breakdown of British society/families/morals. No indeed, we need to go much further.

Since the dawn of time, people have abused their children, and I now propse this radical ten-step programme to eradicating child abuse FOREVER:

1. Baby licenses. Couples have to apply to have children in the first place, and the adjudicators who give out the licenses will be people like Jacqui Smith and Boris Johnson.
2. It goes without saying, certain categories of person will not be allowed to give birth at all: single parents, those who have had more than one marriage, or more than one partner, or more than one sexual partner, or any sex at all ever.
   
3. Cameras installed in every home, with audio, and voice recognition to call the police immediately if any of the following sounds are heard: crying child, raised voice, loud thud or other noise.
4. Social Services to vet the household of every new baby at one week intervals, for the first five years of their life, then fortnightly until they are 10, then monthly.
5. Social Workers to have the power to have someone instantaneously convicted of child abuse without the need for judicial process.
   
6. Sterlisation in police stations. Whenever someone is arrested, along with their DNA and fingerprints being taken, they will be sterilised. People who get arrested shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
7. The immediate removal of all children from their parents. The parents will then have to retrospectively apply for a license as above.
8. Parents to wear a tag with satellite navigation system, to allow their parental effectiveness to be monitored at all times.
   
9. All children to be put into foster care, forever.
10. The whole of the UK to become one big family, with all children as wards of the nation and politicians directly responsible for their welfare. This is because ultimately politicians know best how children should be brought up.

Until we enact the above programme, cases like Baby P will continue to happen.

I don't WANT that to be the case. But I do want to live in a society where people who aren't torturing and murdering their babies can bring them up without state interference. You can't have it both ways.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.