Children in Need?

The Tories have finally woken up to the issue I highlighted several blogs ago, namely that there is a shortage of social workers. No shit, Sherlock. Well done, Dave. They omitted to go on and elaborate further on the subject (confining themselves as usual to shroud-waving and jumping on bandwagons) so allow me to elaborate. There is a shortage of social workers because their workload is high, their wages are low (comparative to the responsibility they bear) and the resources are few. They are frequently damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and if they make a mistake, they are likely to find themselves crucified by the Sun and the Daily Mail, two papers who support the Tories but not, obviously, to the extent of campaigning for more social workers.

The editorial stance of both papers veers diametrically between castigating the likes of social workers for being part of the PC Brigade (without pausing to reflect that social workers are often themselves victims of the box-ticking, target driven, risk averse society rather than perpetrators of it) and scapegoating them when things go wrong. Never once do they make the connection that if you want more and better social workers, your council tax must go up, because they know this isn’t what their readers want to hear!

Children generally have a poor time of it these days, if Lord Layard is to be believed. But once again, Lord Layard’s diatribe is merely a litany of symptoms, not of diseases. The real root cause of the malaise which is destroying society is worship of the money-god. These days, your sole worth is judged by how much money you have. We live in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself society where everyone wants fame, celebrity and money, now, without having to work for it, and without any responsibilities. It is this refusal by people to take responsibility for their own actions, the idea that it is always someone else’s fault, that leads to schools being closed at the first hint of snow. Local authorities would rather risk the wrath of a posse of angry parents (angry at being forced to take responsibility for their offspring!) than an expensive lawsuit for personal injury and negligence when little Johnny slips on the ice and breaks his leg, because it’s cheaper. All back to money again. Ironically, the kids who were sent home from school and who, as a result, were forced to spend some quality time with their parents, probably had a more fulfilling day as a result.

What has all this to do with Children In Need? Children In Need is, of course, the BBC’s annual jamboree for charity, in which Auntie Beeb puts on the motley for one day and raises money for “good causes”. It’s joined by Red Nose Day, a similar bun-fight, which is coming up next month. Rod Liddle has described Red Nose Day, in The Spectator two years ago, as a “bullying smugfest” … and that was before the BBC decided to set itself up as the arbiter of which children deserve charity help and which children don’t. (I’ll give you a clue: children in Gaza who have been traumatised, maimed or made homeless by Israel’s war crimes don’t deserve charity, according to the BBC, whereas programmes for youth outreach in Birmingham – that should really be provided by the government or local authority-funded social workers – do need to be funded by people willing to dress up like prats or sit in a bath of baked beans.)

Well, I for one will be boycotting Red Nose Day and Children In Need for the foreseeable. Both of them treat the symptoms and not the disease and, since the BBC’s insane decision not to show the D.E.C. Gaza appeal, for me, at any rate, they have a strong whiff of added hypocrisy which makes them even more unpalatable.

If the BBC, the Tory Party, Red Nose Day, Children In Need and anyone else who feels the need to postulate sanctimonious twaddle about the well-being of children, were really serious about the subject, they must acknowledge, and embrace, the following uncompromising truths:

More social workers, and better social workers, cost more money.

Well meaning as they may be, things like Children In Need and Red Nose Day only treat the symptoms, not the disease, in their belief that money can cure everything, and now the BBC has no moral authority as a peddler of charity anyway, post-Gaza.

What we really need is a return to a close-knit, mutually co-operative society based around adults (married or not, straight or gay) giving long-term loving care and development to help children have safe yet fulfilling lives.

The government should be providing much more to make this happen at home instead of giving overseas aid to questionable regimes that spend it on arms or weapons systems instead of on the recipients for whom it was intended, or to countries such as India which has the wherewithal within its own coffers to fund space programmes and nuclear weapons but not to feed the beggars of Mumbai, it seems.

That would be a start. Then we could all begin to rejoice at the prospect of no more “children in need”.