"I feel very sorry for the mother..."

'I'm sure any mother would want the best for her child - but it shows a lack of thought. She must feel absolutely awful.'

I bet she doesn't feel half so bad as the baby...

Medical Ethics? What Medical Ethics?

Isn't it nice to know that no matter what your personal circumstances, there's always a support or pressure group or advocate somewhere that will stand up for your rights?

It seems that doctors wish to forcibly treat a woman with learning difficulties who has cancer and does not wish surgery. Step forward the disability network to uphold her rights and...

Oh. Wait.

Last night Liz Sayce, chief executive of Radar, the disability network, said: “The right to refuse treatment is a cornerstone of human rights and medical ethics, but so too is the duty of care.”The head states that saving the woman’s life is right; the heart recoils at the thought of deceiving and compelling her into undergoing a procedure which she does not want.”

Is it me, or is there a sense of 'mustn't upset the apple cart' about that statement?

“Society, however, must be careful to treat every case individually, and ensure that this case provides no precedent for over-riding the consent of people with learning disabilities in future.”

In other words, 'oooh, we'll let you do this just the once, but don't get too cheeky in the future!'.

Naturally, some medical professionals are 'what's all the fuss here? we do it all the time!' about this:

Dr Evan Harris, a former member of the Commons Science and Technology committee, said: “In A&E departments up and down the country, patients without capacity such as those drunk, drugged, psychotic, confused or with dementia are treated seemingly against their will, day in and day out. Learning disability coupled with needle or hospital-phobia in a patient with cancer needing is unusual but is a relatively routine matter for clinical ethics.”

It seems mental health campaigners aren't the only ones who've lost sight of what they are supposed to stand for...

Via UK NewsNetwork .

Update: MummyLongLegs has a piece of her mind for the medical establishment too...

Surely, You Jest..?

"Surely a 2 or 3 year old will be supervised and it's for their parents to explain it or keep them away in the same way as they keep them off other equipment for bigger children."

So says an online commenter to this story about a council's newly-built playing area for children, which appears to have a rather unfortunately-designed piece of equipment.

Clearly, this commenter hasn't observed an awful lot of modern day parents, have they?

Go To Work On An Egg A Motivational Statement!

Well, my office's teamworking event was, as expected, a massively pointless waste of time. But as I sit here gloomily contemplating my bulging email inbox, I realise it could be worse:

Many people admit they struggle to get motivated for a day's work when they first get up in a morning.

But police in Manchester have been given a helping hand after bosses printed American-style slogans on their breakfast cereal boxes.

The messages, which cost almost £2,400 to create, include: 'Start your day the citizen-focused way' and 'Putting people first.'

Oh, I just bet they went down a storm...

One disgruntled officer said: 'I can't believe the force would spend money on rubbish like this when there are cut-backs all over the place.'

Can't you? Can't you really?

Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney (Ed: Really..?) defended the decision to create the boxes.

He said: 'The promotional cereal and tea bag boxes were produced at a minimal cost around 18 months ago and have long-since passed their sell-by date.

'In late 2008, we sent out 500 of each around the force and, at the time they were issued, we received very few negative comments from anyone within the force and it was generally well-received.

'They were designed to show - in a more eye-catching format than a simple poster - what officers and staff should be doing to improve public confidence in the policing and the delivery of the 'policing pledge', such as how to make it easier for people to contact us.

'The money for them came out of the 2008/9 budget, which came out of a different economic climate. To complain about them now is, in my view, a little after-the-event.'

There you have it - modern management to a 't'. If they don't hear enough complaints (and you can just bet they went out of their way not to hear any..) it must be a success...

Why Should The Government Have To Help You To Have 'A Normal Family Life'..?

Problem families who make the lives of their neighbours a misery with antisocial behaviour are the target of a new community programme.

Ooh, I'm hoping, here.

I'm hoping this is going to be some good old zero tolerance, shape-up-or-ship-out action. But that word, 'community'. It bothers me. It says 'doing things on the cheap'.

Oh. Wait:

Southend Council’s youth offending team joined forces with South Essex Homes to win £230,000 of Government funding to tackle the problem across the town.

Well, that's certainly not on the cheap, is it?!

What's the money going towards? Cattle prods? A set of stocks for the village green? Extra prison places? Bringing Joe Arpaio over for some consultation?

The money will see a dedicated unit set up in the borough to work with individuals, families and children who are likely to be involved in antisocial or nuisance behaviour, in many cases helping stop them getting evicted.

Oh.

Carol Compton, head of Southend Council’s youth offending team, said:...“We all know bringing up a family can sometimes be a difficult task, and this programme provides support and advice to lead a normal family life.”

What..?

I lead a 'normal family life'. So do my neighbours. Oddly enough, we do it without help from a team of council taxpayer teat-suckers, too...

Kilworth Avenue resident Glyn Evans, a long-time community campaigner in the Kursaal area, said: “Antisocial behaviour isn’t just a bit of loud noise or bad behaviour now and then, it can be a life-ruining experience.

“I am personally fully supportive of anything that can be done to reduce the incidence of anti-social behaviour at the root cause, and not just paper over it by threatening people or sending them to prison.”

There you go. They'd rather spend your money on pandering to scum and 'assisting' them not to be scum than in 'punishing' them.

Sums up modern life just beautifully, doesn't it? In fact, as a commenter says:

Nebs, Westcliff-on-Sea says...

The worse you are, the more you get.

Well, this isn't a recipe for disaster or anything, then...

And why, when the response from the Righteous to other initiatives to improve the way the lazy and feckless behave is considered to be 'imposing our own value system' on them, is money poured down the drain on this sort of thing?

If You Want To Know The Time, Don’t Ask A Policeman…

…because he’ll be too busy handing out cards to kids:

Premier League Footballers, Power Rangers and predators have all been the subject of popular card swapping game Top Trumps.

And now it is the turn of the police as the Hayes and Coney Hall safer neighbourhood team unveil their own version - Cop Trumps.

This is, apparently, the brainchild of some cretin promotion-conscious cop to ‘engage with the community’ and ‘promote safety’:

The cards are a set of 30 numbered cards featuring pictures and descriptions of the officers from the team.

Each officer will carry their own card and children will be challenged to find and speak to officers - either when out patrolling the ward or when visiting the school - to collect their card.

Additional cards will be given to children on request in answer to a simple personal safety question and they will then get a special ‘gold’ card congratulating them when they have collected the full set.

Oh, good grief!

PC Mark Donovan from the Hayes and Coney Hall Safer Neighbourhood Team said: "Younger children have always enjoyed collecting cards and we have certainly seen a lot of interest in these new Cop Trump cards.

“We hope that the children will enjoy building the set, and learning more about the work of the police and their local officers."

His work?

Will he be ever able to do any, while being followed around the borough by hyperactive kiddiewinks begging for cards?

You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat Dock...

Six more teenagers have been charged with murdering a teenager at Victoria Tube station.

Aspiring footballer Sofyen Belamouadden was stabbed several times in the chest at the station on March 25.

Nineteen people have now been charged with the killing...

I expect this will provide more grist to the mill for those who are of the opinion that 'joint enterprise' is a terrible, terrible thing.

Next, On The Discovery Channel's 'Extreme Professions'...

...'Chalk Carving: Hardcore':

Criminals have been banned from helping to clean up a chalk carving in Brighton as part of their community service because the job is "too dangerous".

Oh, well, of course.

I suppose the organisers had to pay someone to do it, then? Since if it's too dangerous for scum, it's obviously too dangerous for anyone else?

The project to re-carve the hawk on the hill in Whitehawk was instead carried out by children as young as five.

/facepalm

Mr Silsby said his own risk assessment had shown the work was so safe children as young as five could take part last month.

He said: "This is part of a health and safety mad, nanny state culture."

Can't really argue with that, can they?

"There are slopes on the hillside, obviously, and a few brambles. That's it. So we supervised the youngest kids and were careful. But the probation service took a different view.

"If we try to eliminate all risk we'll end up in a situation where we end up doing nothing at all.

"We needed every helping hand we could get, and children of all ages came along.

And is the probation service embarassed that they've been shown up to be box-ticking, risk-averse morons?

Well, what do you think?

A Surrey and Sussex Probation Trust spokesman said: "We are required to ensure that we can arrange for offenders to carry out their work in a way that is safe for them and the public.

"Regrettably with this project there was a concern following a risk assessment that the nature of the terrain was such that there could easily be an accident for which Surrey and Sussex Probation Trust could be held liable."

I can bet that none of the 'customers' of this service bothered to run a risk assessment before they climbed in someone's window or stole someone's car...

More 'Lord Of The Flies' Than 'Goodbye Mr Chips'...

Victoria Coren thinks we didn’t get upset enough about the case of Peter Harvey. in this column from a week or so ago:

Last week, hundreds of pupils staged a rebellion after seven of their peers were expelled for bullying. They marched into the quad, chanting for the headmaster and shouting abuse, before heading off to smoke and drink on the playing fields.

The headmaster, Richard Harman, held an emergency assembly in the chapel, where he explained why he had no choice but to expel the bullies. The rebellion was contained and the mutinous pupils are back in class.

Hmm, perhaps he should have expelled a few more, pour encourager les autres...

It's got everything, hasn't it? A quad. A chapel. A rebellion. Smoking on the playing fields. This is like public-school life in a film: flexing pubescent muscle, finding a voice, all under the safe wing of a firm-but-fair headmaster, against a backdrop of ancient stone and springy grass.

And what a headmaster. Zero tolerance of bullying, full tolerance of free speech.

Listening, explaining, "respecting", then sending them back to double maths where they belong.

Well, you get what you pay for, Victoria. This headmaster probably isn't bound by a telephone-directory sized book of rules and 'guidance' from the DoE and Ofsted...

What brings a lump to the throat is remembering how few schoolchildren in this country get to have that experience. You could cry, comparing this story to the other one, last week, about the state school science teacher who clubbed a pupil over the head with a 3k dumbbell, fracturing his skull.

Yes, it's appalling that the discipline problem in our schools can drive a man to these sorts of lengths, and...

Oh. That's not what you meant, is it?

The response to that story has been bizarre. The teacher's acquittal of attempted murder was greeted with a sort of public jubilation.

What do you expect?

You view the one incident of him snapping, yet ignore the constant taunts and bad behavious and sheer bloody arrogance of these children, secure in the knowledge that they cannot be touched, and that if they are, the CPS will swing into view immediately, no matter how small the injury.

There isn't an appropriate sense of sad, gentle relief that our justice system behaved mercifully to a mentally ill man.

On a lot of comments, that's exactly what was shown. But you'd rather concentrate on the others, wouldn't you?

People are actually on the teacher's side. There has been a flurry of articles in the press about feral modern schoolkids, all sympathetic to the idea of "lashing out".

That's because a lot of people are as fed up as this man must have been. They've seen the wilful arrogance and 'can't toubch me!' attitude of children today, they've seen the state constantly meddle in how their children can be disciplined, and the recognise this case for what it is; the inevitable result of such policies.

It is as if they think the teacher was acquitted not because he was ill and had no murderous intent, but because he did the right thing. It's as if they think children are so unruly that they deserve to be battered and attacked.

Some of them are, Victoria. Some of them are...

This is terrifying. If people really believe that discipline among state school children is now so out of control that any reasonable person would be tempted to fracture their skulls with a dumbbell, then why are we talking about anything else at all?

Why wouldn't people believe this, Victoria? The MSM has daily horror stories about the behaviour of state-educated children. They've even crippled teachers.

Even people with no children see the behaviour of state-educated pupils every day, particularly those unfortunate enough to travel on public transport with them.

There must, surely, be something we can learn from the difference between these two school stories. Whatever is at the heart of Uppingham, which allows those children to have a confident, non-violent protest but go back to class when they're told, needs to be identified like the Higgs Boson particle, bottled and passed around every school in the country.

Luckily, she mostly avoids the 'class and wealth' easy options:

Is it because they come from rich families, giving them the confidence to kick against a status quo but the motivation ultimately to uphold it? Is it because, in a fee-paying situation, the headmaster has the freedom immediately to expel troublemakers in a way that someone with national responsibility does not? Is it because their teachers are better paid, less tired, less in thrall to Ofsted and thus better able to radiate a sense of authority and power?

Think you've put your finger on it, Victoria. Well done. Any more observations?

I'm writing this article on Thursday. By the time it's published, I assume Nick Clegg will be prime minister.

Ah. OK, we'll draw a veil over that one...

The public response to that pupil attack, the idea of "Yes, well, he would, wouldn't he?", is the scariest thing to have happened in this country for years.

No. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. As MacHeath points out:

“The premeditation here was all on the part of the pupils who cynically plotted to provoke a stressed man into losing control while they filmed the result. Well, they certainly got what they wanted.

Teaching is an anomaly, a job in which any sign of perceived weakness will be exploited and yet teachers are hedged about with draconian rules about how they may deal with disruption, to the extent that pupils have developed a 'can't touch me!' attitude.”

One pupil learned that that only goes so far. A pity the others haven't yet taken on the lesson....

This Is A Surprise...

Two boys aged 10 and 11 were found guilty today of attempting to rape a girl of eight.

They were among the youngest boys to be prosecuted for rape in Britain and are now thought to be the country's youngest convicted sex offenders.

I was expecting an acquittal, what with the complete collapse of the main prosecution witness...

They had denied assaulting the girl and their barristers claimed they were just being naughty or playing a game.

But the judge Mr Justice Saunders refused their pleas to throw the case out after the girl admitted she had not been truthful about some of her evidence.