Libby Believes We Need The Smack Of Firm Government...

Libby Brooks weighs in on the EU smacking ban and how we should adopt it here immediately:

Earlier this week the Council of Europe – which monitors compliance with the European convention on human rights – berated Britain for having failed to introduce a smacking ban more than a decade after a ruling that the practice violated children's right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment. It's not the first time that Britain has been criticised over smacking – we are one of only five EU countries not to have introduced a ban – and it won't be the last time that such criticism has been blithely ignored.

How dare we? How very dare we ignore advice from our betters!

But, as the council steps up its campaign against physical punishment, it may well be that in coming months, defensive outrage is no longer an option.

How about ignoring them, then? Is that an option, Libby?

Any proposed variation of a smacking ban immediately ignites a toxic touchpaper, encompassing as it does our peculiarly British preoccupation with human rights, European diktat, homebound state interference, parental responsibility and children's place in society.

What, exactly, IS 'children's place in society', Libbty? Because it seems to me that it's shifted a little over the years.

No, scratch that. It's shifted a lot...

Thus it seems pointless to note that the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, from which this all stems, was an international rather than a European document, which the British government was heavily involved in drafting.

Yes, well, you'll note that we are about as enthused over being told what to do by our government as we are over being told what to do by an unelected one...

That smacking is a stratospherically emotive issue, entrenched in generational and cultural expectations, is self-evident. But the contradictions in public attitude are manifest. While we weep over the death of Baby P, it is anathema to suggest that smacking might occupy a space – however limited – on the continuum of child abuse.

I'm not entirely sure that you can even begin that continuum with smacking as a starting point. Do you not realise how silly you sound?

…yet it would be entirely feasible to institute a smacking ban in this country that didn't penalise parents for reasonable interventions. Simply changing the "reasonable chastisement" defence against common assault to "reasonable restraint" would remove the covert approval of physical punishment while acknowledging the right to use force to stop a child darting into the path of a 4x4.

Ah. I see where Libby has gone wrong. She believes in the wisdom and guidance of lawyers to craft laws that punish the right target while avoiding harm to the unintended one.

She really should know better, shouldn't she?

…it's frequently contended that a ban would exist as a meaningless heartwarmer, given how impossible it is to police individual homes. And bans in general do invite a noxious response.

But it's not 'impossible to police individual homes'. It's just very, very expensive and time consuming.

And have no doubt, there will be people who are chomping at the bit like Grand National winners, waiting for the chance to try to do just that...

But what the naysayers avoid is the potential of a very public, governmental, condemnation of smacking.

Yes, indeed. We all listen to the government, right?

Only the Liberal Democrats have committed in their manifesto to incorporating the UN convention into British law, which is probably about as hopeless a daydream as proportional representation.

Or hearing the words 'Nick Clegg, Prime Minister' on May 7th...

But, in the meantime, we cannot rely on benign self-regulation by parents alone.

Let me rephrase that for you, Libby: 'Stupid proles can't be expected to make their own decisions...''

Smacking is assault, however you dress it up. It brings with it all the guilt, shame and assumptions of weakness and power that come with any attack on another human. The victim is in this case a smaller person, but still a person. Whether practically enforcible or otherwise, the message that such assaults will no longer tolerated is needed to prompt a complete cultural revision of attitudes to children that goes far beyond the Naughty Step.

We need a cultural revision of attitudes to children, all right. I agree with you there, Libby. I doubt we'd reach the same conclusion though...