My response to Rod Liddle on children's social services

The post I'm responding to:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle/5724588/two-childrelated-incidents.thtml#comments


My response:

"Two chunks of hermetically sealed outrage, then, with no conceivable link between them."

Sorry, Rod, I'm all in favour of coded meanings, but you're leaving yourself wide open to misinterpretation here - which I hope isn't a consequence of the usual idiots trying to use your words against you.

On the first reading I took you to be pointing up a contradiction in public attitudes to social services - ie we howl in protest when they take action, but also howl in protest when they fail to act.

Then it occurred to me that you might be pointing out that if social workers didn't spend their days persecuting easy targets like the mum with learning difficulties - even going so far as to track her to Ireland, for fuck's sake - they might find time somewhere along the line to do something about scum like the family whose sons tortured those poor kids. The contrast is instructive. In the first instance they fail to give the benefit of the doubt to a woman who, so far as I can discern, has never harmed anyone. And in the second they endlessly indulge a couple who it turns out they might now finally get around to prosecuting for "child neglect".

My money's on the second option, but feel free to disabuse me.