Britain's hate-filled Leftist social workers again

They despise ordinary people. There is no way they could have been unaware of what they were doing in the matter below. Social work schools are one of the chief sources of political correctness and all the inverted values that go with that -- such as favouring criminals at the expense of victims and ferals at the expense of middle-class people.

Social workers failed to warn foster parents about sexual offences committed by a teenager placed in their care who went on to rape their two-year-old son and abuse their nine-year-old daughter. The youth, 18, attacked the children within months of being welcomed into the family, a court was told yesterday. An inquiry was ordered as the director of social services for Vale of Glamorgan Council apologised for what he admitted was a serious error of judgment in placing the youth in a home with young children. The youth was ordered to be detained indefinitely, after admitting rape and sexual assault.

Richard Evans, for the prosecution, told Cardiff Crown Court that the youth, who cannot be identified, abused the children over a period of several months until the older child told her parents what was happening. He said: “The foster parents’ daughter told them how he would come into her room, lie on top of her, kiss her and put his hands under her clothing. She said when she called out, he put his hand over her mouth. The girl confided in her parents after her little brother was raped by the teenager. It was an horrific abuse.”

The court heard that the foster parents had taken in the youth as an emergency case because he was homeless. They were not told that he had a history of sexual offending dating back at least five years, when he first faced allegations of inappropriate behaviour with a young boy. In 2005 he admitted exposing himself and sexually touching another young boy. Two years ago he was sacked from a job at a bowling alley after complaints that he was asking young girls for their telephone numbers. Last year he was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while she slept.

Nicholas Cooke, QC, the Recorder of Cardiff, said it was a matter of grave concern how the youth ended up with the family. He said: “In this case a tragedy ensued for a family who only wished to serve the community and who were let down by the system. They were unable to protect their own children because of a failure to provide them with information.” He told the youth he would be detained for a minimum of six years and would be released only when he was considered to be no longer a danger to the public. His name was put on the sex offenders register and he was banned from working with children for life.

David Pinnel, for the defence, said that the youth had been exposed to temptation through no fault of his own. “He was immature and in need of help but through no fault of his own was placed in an environment where he was afforded the opportunity to commit these terrible offences. The criminal responsibility is his, but it would not have happened if he had not been placed in that position.”

Foster parents have a legal right to all the information held by social workers on a child they take into their home. That was established in 2000 when the parents of four children sexually abused by a fostered teenager in Essex won a seven-year court case. Their case also established the right to sue the local authority in question.

The inquiry is to be overseen by the NSPCC, the children’s charity. Vale of Glamorgan Council confirmed that the inquiry will look at what should have been done to protect the children. It said: “The carers have been asked to play an important role in finding out what went wrong. Issues of professional practice and judgment highlighted during the initial inquiry have received an immediate response, including use of the council’s disciplinary policy.”

Phil Evans, Vale of Glamorgan’s director of social services, apologised yesterday to the family. He said: “The council deeply regrets the distress and harm caused to the family. Senior managers have met with them to apologise and to find out what support they may need now and in the future. “It has become clear there was a serious error of judgment. Staff are taking this very seriously. We are doing all we can to find out what went wrong and to ensure such events are never repeated.”

SOURCE



Another blow to fatherhood: British IVF mothers can name ANYONE as 'father' on birth certificate

Family values were under attack again last night with the news that single women having IVF will be able to name anyone they like as their baby's father on the birth certificate. New regulations mean that a mother could nominate another woman to be her child's 'father'. The 'father' does not need to be genetically related to the baby, nor be in any sort of romantic relationship with the mother. Critics said a woman could list her best friend on the birth certificate. The word 'father' may even be replaced with the phrase 'second parent'. The second parent, who will have to consent to being named, will take on the legal and moral responsibilities of parenthood. This raises the spectre of a legal minefield in which female 'fathers' will fight for visitation rights and be chased for child support payments if their fragile relationship with the mother breaks down.

The changes, due to come in on April 6, will apply to many of the 2,000 women a year who have IVF using sperm from anonymous donors. The regulations are part of the controversial Embryology Bill passed by Parliament last year. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said they will give lesbian couples in civil partnerships who undergo IVF the same rights as married heterosexual couples. An unmarried man whose girlfriend has fertility treatment will also find it easier to claim full parental rights.

The new rules state: 'The women receiving treatment with donor sperm (or embryos created with donor sperm) can consent to any man or woman being the father or second parent.' The only exemption is close blood relatives.

Critics said the change would lead to the role of father being downgraded to the one of godfather and warned that the child would be the one to lose out. Baroness Deech, a former chairman of the HFEA, said the practice would lead to the ' falsification of the birth certificate'. She said: 'This is putting the rights of the parents way above those of the child. It is absurd that anyone can be named as the father or the second parent.'

Dr Trevor Stammers, a GP and lecturer in healthcare ethics, questioned the strength of the relationships or friendships between the mother and 'father'. He said: 'There is no doubt from sociological evidence accumulated over the past few years that children do best in a two-parent married family with heterosexual couples being the married parents. 'It probably will be the child that is the loser but by the time we find that out, in 15 or 16 years, a huge amount of damage will have been done.'

Geraldine Smith, Labour MP for Morecambe, said a birth certificate should be a true record of a child's genetic heritage. She added: 'I don't think the state should collude with parents to conceal the true genetic identity.' David Jones, a professor of bioethics, likened the role of second parent to that of godparent. He added: 'This sounds like social engineering on the hoof.' Philippa Taylor, of Christian charity CARE, said: 'We are going to get to the point where a birth certificate is not going to be a true statement of anyone's biological heritage.'

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said a father played an essential role in the development of a child. He added: 'The present Government seems not to care a damn about families. 'Teenage pregnancy is on the increase, abortion is on the increase, family breakdown is at record levels and we have got a growing number of dysfunctional children that are the product of broken homes. 'The lesson seems to be loud and clear to me that fathers are required.' Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said the change would destroy the 'basic nature' of a man and a woman bringing up a child together as parents.

Other critics said that Labour's family and benefit policies support and reward single parents at the expense of couples and have sidelined marriage as a lifestyle choice with no value for children. The HFEA said it was unlikely for the actual sperm donor to be named on the birth certificate because the sample is normally obtained from a sperm bank. It added that the welfare of the child would always come first and any person nominated as a second parent would have counselling to ensure they understood the implications.

SOURCE



Big Brother Britain is a menace. The irony is, it's the civil liberties lobby who are to blame

Suddenly, a new political consensus appears to have emerged for the chattering classes. At the weekend, lawyers, celebrities, writers, politicians and lobbyists took part in a series of meetings across Britain, organised by the umbrella group Convention on Modern Liberty, to discuss their fears about the erosion of Britain's historic rights and freedoms by the 'surveillance society'. The convention brought together such stalwart Lefties as the human rights lawyer Baroness Kennedy with the former Tory home affairs spokesman David Davis - who resigned his post specifically to devote himself to campaigning on the civil liberties issue. Even the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who is regarded as a security hawk through his strong backing for a national identity card scheme and tough anti-terror laws, warned of the danger of a 'Big Brother' state through data-sharing between public bodies. Like all bandwagons, however, this one needs a beady eye cast over it, not least because of its occasional note of hysteria.

Its claim that Britain is turning into a police state is clearly over the top (and reveals no small ignorance of what terrors a true police state inflicts). Its alarmism over closed-circuit TV and DNA profiling pays scant regard to their usefulness in catching criminals. And there's more than a whiff of an underlying agenda to paint Britain as worse than the tyrannies and rogue states that threaten its interests, with a corresponding anxiety to downplay the terrorism threat against this country.

Nevertheless, we should, indeed, be concerned about some of the ways in which freedom is being compromised. Some local councils are making wholly inappropriate use of anti-terrorist legislation to snoop on citizens, while other public bodies - such as the Charity Commission, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the BBC - are able to make deeply questionable use of further surveillance powers. There will soon be compulsory CCTV cameras tracking people as they shop in supermarkets for a bottle of wine, and pubs are being told they will only get a licence if they agree to train their security cameras on their customers.

The Coroners and Justice Bill will allow inquests involving matters of national security to be held in secret if ministers so decide. And the Home Office is planning a new 'Intercept Modernisation Programme' which will store details of every phone call, email and internet visit - a proposal condemned by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, as 'a step too far for the British way of life'.

These are very real concerns. But despite them, the campaigners' argument is skewed. They claim that fear of terrorism has curtailed freedom. But this ignores the role played by the civil liberties lobby in bringing about this state of affairs in the first place. For many of those now howling about the erosion of our ancient principles are the very same people who were behind the introduction of human rights law.

It may be thought a curious irony that the Human Rights Act was introduced in 1998 to tackle precisely the concerns expressed last weekend of a slide into tyranny - and yet liberty has been seriously eroded in the past decade. In fact, this isn't curious at all. Although the campaigners would sooner cut off their hands than admit it, the one has followed directly from the other. The idea that human rights law expands freedom was always a serious mistake. It has the opposite effect.

One of the main reasons the State has resorted to gathering intelligence within Britain on such an alarming scale is the collapse of the ability to control our borders. And that was brought about by the systematic refusal by the courts, on human rights grounds, to keep out or deport a range of undesirables. The reason this country never had the identity card system common to so many European states was the fact that it used to have robust border controls. Once those barriers came down, the only way to protect the country's security became internal surveillance.

Of course, this runs wholly contrary to the historic principles of English liberty. But that is the inevitable outcome of human rights law - which has ridden roughshod over those principles - because many of those now campaigning against the erosion of liberty also claim that 'universal' human rights principles trump Britain's own. Under that law, judges have been handed the power to balance rights against each other. And time and again, they have come down in favour of the rights of terror suspects, illegal immigrants and common criminals against the rights of indigenous, law-abiding people. So it's a bit rich for the liberty campaigners to claim that fear of terrorism has eroded human rights.

And it's even more hard to take when such campaigners claim they are passionate about defending the English common law. This is, indeed, the bastion of our liberties by holding that people are free to act unless the law expressly prohibits them from doing so. But the human rights law these campaigners foisted upon us has taken a judicial axe to that principle by making judges the arbiters of our freedoms. In doing so, they deliberately transferred power from Parliament to the courts. And the inevitable consequence of that has been that MPs lost power to the judges. This weakening of Parliament has enabled the Labour Government to use Parliamentary procedure to short-circuit debate and force through legislation without proper scrutiny.

A more robust Parliament would have prevented the Government passing those laws which threaten our fundamental freedoms. But over the past few years, Westminster has had the stuffing knocked out of it by a series of measures, including human rights law, whose purpose was to destroy this country's constitutional settlement and powers of democratic self-government.

Devolution took away Parliament's power to decide many laws for Scotland and Wales. Above all, EU membership - whose impact upon Britain has greatly increased during the past decade - has taken away more and more powers of self-rule and made Parliament increasingly irrelevant.

Most of today's liberty campaigners are also supporters of this constitutional revolution. That's because the dominant creed in such progressive circles is the belief that the historic values of this nation should be superseded by international laws and institutions - which will apparently usher in the utopia of the brotherhood of man. In fact, this is profoundly anti-democratic and anti-freedom because it upholds the rights of some preferred groups against others. As such, it is responsible for the real curtailment of our liberties through anti-discrimination laws and codes against 'hate speech', hijacking freedom by deciding who is or is not entitled to have it.

Accordingly, such liberty campaigners have been notably silent over, for example, the banning from Britain of the Dutch MP and anti-Islamism campaigner Geert Wilders. They have been silent over the erosion of the rights of men accused of rape to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. They were silent when a Christian was forced off an adoption panel because she opposed gay adoption. Such selectivity undermines their claim to be the true defenders of liberty.

Some of the concerns they are now raising are valid. This country's bedrock principles of freedom and democracy are, indeed, being eroded. But the campaigners should look in the mirror if they want to know who is to blame.

SOURCE



The Current Confusion Of Black Protest Politics

It is almost amusing to watch practitioners of the old black protest politics try hold on to their old positions as the threats to them come from new and unexpected directions. Take this lament by noted black protest author/journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson that "the number of black elected officials has been stagnant at best and, at worst, on a downhill slide," an article that inadvertently reveals some of the confusions and contradictions of contemporary black protest politics. Note, for starters, his assumption that blacks are owed guaranteed political success and that removing that guarantee is a "peril" for black politicians:

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in 1993 on minority redistricting is another potential peril for black politicians. The court tossed out districts that had been gerrymandered to preserve black population majorities. These so-called race-based districts were mostly in the South and were deliberately drawn to insure that black candidates would perpetually be elected to Congress.

Since Hutchinson himself said that these districts were "gerrymandered to preserve black population majorities," why does he insist on calling them so-called race-based districts? And where in the Constitution, or anywhere else, is the guarantee that "black candidates" should be "perpetually elected to Congress"? Next Hutchinson trips over some factual hurdles (facts are often hard to get across or around):

An added dilemma for black voters is that any future increase in the number of black elected officials must come from what are currently majority white districts. Yet, with the exception of former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts and former Connecticut Rep. Gary Franks - both Republicans and both conservatives who were elected from majority white districts - it is still a hard sell for blacks to triumph in non-black majority districts.

What are black Democratic Representatives Sanford Bishop of Georgia and Melvin Watt of North Carolina, potted plants? Bishop's district (Georgia 2nd) is 60% white, and Watt's (North Carolina's infamous 12th, the I-85 district) has a plurality of whites.

Even the New York Times has noticed what Hutchinson hasn't. In an article from last October that featured Melanie Levesque of New Hampshire, a black woman who "represents one of the whitest districts in one of the whitest states in the nation." Levesque, however, was simply the cover girl for the article's main subject: "a new generation of black elected officials who are wooing white voters and winning local elections in predominantly white districts across the country."

... [O]ver the last 10 years, about 200 black politicians have won positions once held by whites in legislatures and city halls in states like New Hampshire, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee. In 2007, about 30 percent of the nation's 622 black state legislators represented predominantly white districts, up from about 16 percent in 2001, according to data collected by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group based in Washington that has kept statistics on black elected officials for nearly 40 years.

Finally, note what Hutchinson describes as another of the "daunting obstacles" facing black politicians:

The turgidity in black political gains can also be dumped squarely on several phenomena: black voter apathy, alienation, inner-city population drops, suburban integration and displacement by Latinos and Asians who have shown a far greater willingness than blacks to split their votes more evenly among both Republican and Democratic candidates....

Black politicians must also expand their agenda to address the needs of Latino and Asian voters. Their support will be absolutely crucial if black politicians expect to hold or win office in the future in districts that were once majority black but are fast changing to majority Latino and Asian districts.

Turgidity? My dictionary (the Oxford American, a version of which is built into the Mac's operating system) defines turgid as follows:

swollen and distended or congested : a turgid and fast-moving river. [But also, and this may be more appropriate] (of language or style) tediously pompous or bombastic : some turgid verses on the death of Prince Albert.

But never mind the turgid style; the real problem here is the confusion and contradiction of the substance. First, it still doesn't occur to Hutchinson that if blacks want to get elected they should "expand their agenda" to appeal to whites as well. The pale, apparently, remain beyond the pale.

More fundamentally, however, Hutchinson doesn't explain why blacks should be elected to represent districts that "are fast changing to majority Latino and Asian districts." Well, of course he doesn't. He can't. The whole point of "diversity" these days is that people should be represented (even in institutions that are not designed to be representative) by people who "look like them."

It has never struck me as a smart move for minorities to elevate pigment to principle and to pin their claim for equal treatment on what they look like, and I suspect some black politicians who are in the process of being displaced by Hispanics and Asians may come to hold colorblind merit in higher regard than they have in the past.

SOURCE

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

***************************