Gloucester Cathedral flowers may wilt this Christmas

I was reading last weekend about the nonsense in Gloucester Cathedral over the flower arrangers. It's taken a week for me to calm down. It is this sort of insanity that gets my goat. Annabel Hayter is, or was, the chief flower arranger. Then the cathedral authorities decided she and her fellow flower arrangers need vetting in case they might be tempted to do some evil in the vestry. Quite rightly Mrs Hayter took umbrage. ‘Do I look like a paedophile?’ she asked, angrily. ‘Of course I don’t. It’s ridiculous. I’ve got four children, 11 grandchildren and I’m as innocent as the day is long. So why should I have to prove that I am not?" She says this in her sitting room, which is full of ­flowers. There are lilies in vases, pink and white cyclamen in Christmassy pots and silk flowers in enormous peach and white displays. The motifs on the ­curtains are enormous sprawling flowers, the cushions on the sofa have patterns of blooms - even her teapot is flowery. Sitting in one corner is Annabel, resplendent in baby-pink cashmere jumper, a double string of pearls, beautiful pink nails and a couple of corgis by her feet. I'd say she was anything other than a paedophile or pervert.

I was watching Midlands Today and some female cleric in a red jumper came on saying that "We can't be too careful. Better to err on the side of caution. Blah, blah!" and simpered along suggesting that nothing was amiss. What is amiss is the whole edifice of this frightful quango that we all have to genuflect to. Of course, Mrs Hayter is right and the female cleric is wide of the mark. It is also insulting in the extreme to suggest that these flowery women would what to mess around with choir boys. Evil be to he (or she) who evil thinks. Maybe the flowers will wilt this Christmas. The lady clergyperson will get a sign at last!

The Independent Safeguarding Authority is a quango for all quangos. The chief bottlewasher, Sir Roger Singleton, gets paid handsomely for raking in the cash but doing diddly-squat to stop paedophiles. I would like him to come on national television and tell us all how many perverts his quango has identified who are seeking to work with children or vulnerable adults. I bet he would only need the fingers of one hand to help him. Yet his organisation charges fees for 9 million plus to be vetted and probed. As Mrs Hayter says, if she had gone along with it, they would all know at this quango what she uses her money for, because the quango wants to see bank statements. I'm glad my archdeacon saw a clean set of monetary transactions! Where are all these files kept. Maybe the real perverts are those sifting through other people's stuff.

Recently in Solihull two teachers have been charged for downloading child porn. They will stand trial soon. I guarantee you that Singleton's outfit knew damn all about it. If they are convicted, some West Midlands copper will stand outside the court and say "Well, these two fell under the radar!". Hopeless, the lot of them.

And a vicar has been convicted of the same offence. What did his diocese know about it all. Did the Vetting and Barring Scheme identify him? Not a chance! Why should they? They are mainly concerned with trying to fleece old women with zimmer frames who just want to stick a few flowers up in church.

No, the real results will be when those with the inability to control unnatural desires are given every encouragement to seek help and that those who care about changing their lives are given proper support. All we get at the moment is the quango on one side and the red top media on the other. A totally hopeless situation.

Vulnerable minorities

I'm glad the Home Secretary has decided to abandon the more ridiculous elements of New Labour's vetting scheme. The quango set up to see if we are deviants of the first order will still be in place though. We live in a weird world. We have to be so careful not to offend but also be wary of being accused of neglect, abuse or just plain ingorance of the new ways.

I'm just getting my head around the concept of vulnerable lone workers. The idea now is that no female, juvenile or elderly person can be left on their own in charge of a workplace. Any visitor is deemed to be a potential threat. Woe betide any cold caller visiting when a single woman is left alone over lunchtime. He may be selling widgets but it's his own widget the authorities are minded about. So are we all seen as potential abusers? "You can't be too careful!" goes the mantra. But each time a real pervert is caught a police spokesman blithely comments that "this one fell under our radar!".

If we all think about it we are all in a minority of something. And I suppose we could all be vulnerable at one time or another. This is not about "being careful" but about the authorities wanting to be seen to be carefully covering their backs. Until they get to grips with the aberration of paedophila (the driver behind all this) nothing will change except the number of boxes we have to tick. If Big Brother (or Sister) is going to assist in any meaningful way it will be to identify peadophilia as a notifiable mental disease with the necessary curbs on the person's liberties. Just locking them up is useless. So is creating a wave of hysteria as the likes of the Express and Sun delight in.

The core problem must be tackled otherwise we will become a vulnerable majority.

Suffer little children?

Vernon Coaker, the Minister for Children, Schools and Families, has his work cut out unravelling the law after the New Labour knee-jerk Childcare Act 2006 gave another fright to people. Everything this government does is well-intentioned it seems, but with added doses of control freakery and self-preservation. In response to the two policewomen who found themselves entangled in New Labour legalisms, he repeats the mantra that they (the government) wish "to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children". If only that were so. I fear he left out the first three prerequisites - avoid being sued, cover up your mistakes and get as many people into the data net as possible.

In this particular case, it strikes me as being absurd that "interpretation" of the law is so badly handled. Did it never occur to these New Labour apparatchiks to ask simple questions like how would Ofsted interpret this law if implemented. Obviously not. Nobody spotted the glaring misjudgement of it all. To suggest that "reward" in such cases means something akin to running a childminder's outfit is plainly daft. And it is also plainly daft to suggest that uncles and aunts are any less likely to be a perverted danger to children than a work colleague that is "trusted implicitly". In fact, the opposite is statistically true.

Leanne Shepherd, one of the police officers, said, of the visit by an Ofsted inspector, "I was shocked when she told me I was breaking the law." Just like most other people in the country. But every New Labour law on social interaction needs to be gone over with a fine toothcomb. Leave nothing to chance. Control freakery gets the better of them everytime. Common sense goes out the window.

And children get to suffer in the long run!

Sexual abuse amidst a confused society?

Last night Ed Balls came on the television, blinking like a rabbit in a searchlight beam, to suggest that maybe the government hadn't quite got it right over the vetting and barring scheme. Of course, it wasn't much to do with Ed Balls, it was up to the new quango and its quartermaster to sort out. But I got the distinct feeling that Balls had sensed potential electoral trouble, so his antennae were in overdrive.

Now I read that there has been a case of sexual abuse in a Nottinghamshire children's nursery. The Rocking Horse Nursery in Plumtree has been closed after it was revealed three toddlers had "unexplained" injuries, including a broken leg. What is interesting is that a Child Abuse Investigation Unit spokesman has said, "This is a new line of inquiry from information given to detectives last week. Prior to this neither Nottinghamshire police nor Ofsted were aware of any alleged sexual offences having taken place at the nursery."

Not aware? No, there were not. But why on earth would they. Unless someone says something, nothing would be done. If a burglar robbed a person, but the victim decided to stay silent, how would the police find out? By telepathy? This is the whole flaw in the new Independent Safeguarding Authority's side. Only convicted sex offenders and those given a caution or who are "known" will be flagged up. But certainly not those who are unknown to the police. I assume all at this nursery have been vetted, all have had CRB checks. If something has occurred, then someone got through, didn't they?

Instead of this multi-million pound quango spending its day vetting and barring, the government should do two things. Set up a research unit into the actual manifestation of paedophilia. It is no good talking as if every day is going to start with a bad apple check, like a fruiterer diving into a box of apples. Either paedophilia is an illness or it is a depravity on the sexual proclivities scale. Those with the condition need to be monitored or cured. If it is a condition, then babies born today will have in their number a few paedophiles waiting to grow in adulthood. If it is obtained from nurture, let us find ways to stop the nurturing in the first place.

If it was left to the Sun newspaper, Ian Huntley would have been castrated, hanged, drawn and quartered in Soham town centre. Left to the government, he is in jail and we are lumbered with a quango. Noboby seems to want to find a cure to this problem. Maybe they are too frightened that if a cure to paedophilia is found, then that could be applied to other conditions that some find offensive.

The second thing the government should do is to give social services and education authorities better guidance in ascertaining who is vulnerable from potential abuse or who may become an abuser. Whilst I am distinctly against a nosey-parker society, I firmly believe we should not sit back if we see or hear unsavoury things happening. If there has been abuse in this nursery, you can bet that someone knew about it but felt they couldn't say anything. That feeling of inadequacy must not continue.

We can only really help children and vulnerable adults if we become more caring rather than more scaring.

Sexting is definitely not texting!

I've just come across the term sexting. Sounds as if some clevercloggs thought this a good pun on the word texting. In fact is has nothing much to do with sex, more the base instincts of human emotion with regard to hatred, envy and malice. Jessica Logan spent 18 years on this earth before hanging herself. Why? Because she was the target of silly mean kids who didn't have a clue about responsibility or kindness or anything in particular. They thought it would be fun to send a nude photo of her to hundreds of other teenagers. It was not fun and she ended up being called a "slut", "porn queen" and "whore". Insults were posted on her MySpace and Facebook pages.

The doctrine of original sin is poo-pooed by a great many people. The Christian Church has always taught that we are born into sin and have to be redeemed. If anything represents the fabric of original sin better than the mean art of sexting, than I'd be pleased to know.

Apparently one in five US teenagers has admitted to sexting. This is a very high number indeed. However, the problem is not corrected by some self-righteous prosecutor looking for brownie points attempting to have gullible and impressionable teenagers arrested on charges of child pornography. The proper course of action is for these teenagers to be confronted by their cruelty to others and for it to be stated in no uncertain terms that such deeds lead to tit-for-tat. The perpetrators could end up being the victims.

Saudi sins against children!

I know of many good Muslims who are completely baffled by some adherents to Islam. The Saudis are the keepers of most of the many Islamic shrines and therefore hold that they have a right to determine what is Islamic and what is not.

A Saudi court has seen fit to allow a girl of 8 to "marry" a man of sixty! This on the condition that he does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty. Some condition.

I think this has nothing to do with a religious understanding, nothing whatsoever to do with God's designs in the world. It is all about the power and corruption of a very despicable regime that has usurped religion, trodden on the humanity of its people and conned the world into buying oil at inflated prices.

I know this is going to be lost on such men as this benighted "judge", but Jesus said that anyone who did wrong to children would be better off having a millstone round his neck and being flung into the depths of the ocean. Warning indeed!

President Obama has been urged to lead the way. Perhaps he could start by denouncing this evil and suggesting that Saudi Arabia shapes up by joining the civilised world. Roll on the electric car!

Adolf Hitler taken into custody!

I had a post about what's in a name recently. Some people don't like their names, others are quite happy. I once remarked to my wife that nobody is called Napoleon, only to see a chap on Dutch TV called Napoleon Smit. Now it is reported that the authorities in New Jersey have taken exception to the name Adolf Hitler for a three year old boy. That's right, Adolf Hitler Campbell. They are afraid he might grow up to be some kind of Scottish-American Nazi! Heaven help us.

This all came to prominence because the parents went to a ShopRite supermarket in Greenwich, New Jersey and the cake decorators refused to inscribe Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on a cake for his third birthday.

The child protection unit say it's not about the name, but they won't say what is the real reason for seizing the child. I suppose they couldn't do it just on a name only. There are some pretty weird names out there and some people might be ringing up the welfare people every day.

So no cake for the little boy. The parents must be a bit barking, but if they have looked after the child for three years, why now? It surely wasn't the cake incident alone.

Meddling or motivating?

Prince Charles had a good line. He prefers to say he motivates rather than meddles. The same can't be said of the Prime Minister. In fact, the reverse could be true.

He meddled in the economy. Sir John Major is right to be peeved about that. Now he is meddling as PM. He has some odd thinking at the moment. I assume his "spokesmen" know what's what.

In this tragic Baby P case, Gordon Brown and his Children's minister, the rabbit-in-the-headlights-of-a-car impressionist, otherwise known as Ed Balls, are engaged in all kinds of convoluting sentences to describe what they are doing or not doing. Enquiries are going on they say.

Now the Tories unearth a whistleblower who tried to warn the government six months before Baby P's death in August 2007. A Downing street spokesman said the correct procedures had been followed. Is this about the whistleblower or the whole of Haringey Social Services.

A baby being constantly battered and bruised is not exactly something that anyone would or should ignore. If a minister was told of this, it beggars belief that nobody thought fit to raise a finger to use the phone or right a letter!

Certainly no motivation. Meddling? Doesn't seem they did anything, so if "the correct procedures had been followed" what does it say of the procedures? Gordon Brown needs to "meddle" in things that are going wrong and keep out of things that are going right.

Brown and Cameron in ding-dong over baby death

At PMQs today, David Cameron asked a simple question about the death of Baby P in the Borough of Haringey. Gordon Brown, hoping that the questions would be about the economy, began to sound edgy and defensive. He accused David Cameron of playing party politics. Not a good thing.

John Cruddas has just said on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics show that the Labour backbenchers did not do themselves proud. No, they didn't. The Speaker was dismayed at their attitude.

Gordon Brown needs to get a grip over what really is important. Instead of hiding behind a gobbledegook brief, he should have been far more empathetic, far more considerate of public feeling. It seems his straightened Presbyterian thinking disallows him from communicating human passion.

David Cameron was right to demand an apology for being accused of making party political capital out of this. Brown didn't apologise. He will probably rue the day, because the tabloid press will be all over him tomorrow like a dose of the worst disease.

Let's hope he will learn from this sorry episode.

Shannon stepfather remanded in custody over child porn!

He was seen as the odd one out by those looking in as this case became more than just a matter of a nine-year old disappearing. Craig Meehan is definitely not a well-balanced person. The police obviously had their doubts about him as soon as they entered his house. It's a pity social services hadn't seen all this coming. The attitude with them appears to be that smoke is no real indicator of fire. They wait until a roaring blaze is in place before someone twigs!

The police did the right thing in checking up on Meehan. But they can't rectify the ills in society. Their job is to investigate criminality and wrongdoing. Society has to get a grip of the way life is being debased.

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail has a column dedicated to her opinions on life. I don't always agree with her, but on this she is right. She wrote that Karen Matthews, the mother of Shannon who thankfully was discovered alive and well, referred to her daughter and one of her other six children as "twins". These children are actually aged nine and ten. But Ms Matthews says they are twins because she thinks that's what you call children who have the same father. The level of her understanding is very basic, but we are all prepared to accept this, until something really bad happens.

Can it be right, in the 21st Century, for children like Shannon to grow up in an environment like that? The answer must be no. We can change this, by being supportive neighbours to each other, by caring about people. All too often, for those who have fallen into an area of humanity that most of us deny exists, we turn away.

Meehan is being charged over child pornography. I'll bet that it comes out that he too was abused. If we know that this is mostly cyclical, that it just goes down the generations, are we too stupid to stop it? Or are we afraid of what might be uncovered?

In Jersey they tried to cover up child abuse. But those senators are no less guilty than we are if we let it go on under our noses. It's no use telling a nosey reporter that it was "bound to happen" after it happened. We must stop it now.

I really hope Craig Meehan will be the last of his line!