Sunday, September 03, 2006
Another acronym
The latest acronym to enter the English language is FASBOs or Foetal anti-Social Behaviour Orders. This is a direct reference to Tony Blair's latest assault on the alleged cause of crime, his belief that the state can identify potential yobs before they are born and intervene accordingly.
The Sunday Express has labelled this initiative as an extension of the nanny state but, as many Liberal Democrat bloggers have already identified, it is far more sinister than that. Jonathan Calder on Liberal England has compared these calls for more intervention in the family with the eugenics movement at the start of the 20th century, whilst Charles Anglin asks some very pertinent questions that underline the insidious nature of the proposal:
Who wouldn't be against help for people struggling to raise their children, put like that it sounds almost reasonable. Almost, but then you need to ask a few questions – who will do the identifying? Perhaps the local authority social services departments dominated by our old friends those Guardian reading, Labour voting, middle class lefties with bad 2:2 in Sociology who have been ruining lives for poor people for the last quarter of a century? What about the help, what shape will that take? Already we have dark threats that the state will take away the children of families that don’t control them properly, because we all know how well Council run children homes have served those children who managed to survive their tender care. And who will be the sort of people who get targeted? Well they won't be white, middle class barristers from Islington will they....
So what does Blair actually say? Well according to the Express he wants the state to sit in judgement on all of us and he wants a government computer project to lead the way:
He is understood to favour computer monitoring of families to predict those who could become involved in anti-social behaviour. Mr Blair said: "I think we need to deal with these particular issues and we actually do intervene, at a very early stage.
"If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early, children are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional, and the kids, a few years down the line, are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves.
"Families identified as likely to go off the rails will face regular checks by social services staff and could be forced to attend parenting classes. At worst, benefits could be stopped or the children taken into care.
Mr Blair said action could be taken "pre-birth", if necessary. The State, he said, should tell teenage single mothers: "Here is the support we are prepared to offer you, but we do need to keep a careful watch on you...because all the indicators are that your type of situation can lead to problems in the future."
It is no co-incidence that another costly computer project is being developed that will be capable, at great cost, of using ID cards to track our movements, nor that the Government has recently lifted restrictions that prevent government databases talking to each other. If a computer programme is also being used to make qualitative judgements on our lives and our potential then we will have an authoritarian state beyond even Orwell's imagination.
Like Charles Anglin I believe that Blair has grown beyond parody, the scary thing is that none of his potential successors are lining up to condemn him for it. What disturbs me more is that a quick search of the Liberal Democrat website's news pages finds not a single word on the subject by an official spokesperson either.
I note from Alex Wilcock's post on this that Norman Lamb did say that “Empty threats to pregnant mothers will do little to restore confidence in a government that has failed to tackle poverty, crime and social exclusion for the last nine years.” This though is very much a pragmatic and mechanistic response rather than an instinctively liberal one.
This interference in our lives, the belief that the state should be moulding individuals into identi-kit human beings, the assertion that young mothers should be dictated to rather than offered support are all liberal issues. They impinge directly on our right to assert our own individuality and to take personal responsibility for our actions. As a party we should be leading the fight against such nonsense and it is the leadership who should be at the front of that charge.
Yes, Tony Blair has failed to deal with poverty, anti-social behaviour and the alienation of many young people from society. That he is seeking to compound that failure by shifting the blame to the unborn truly appalls me.
The Sunday Express has labelled this initiative as an extension of the nanny state but, as many Liberal Democrat bloggers have already identified, it is far more sinister than that. Jonathan Calder on Liberal England has compared these calls for more intervention in the family with the eugenics movement at the start of the 20th century, whilst Charles Anglin asks some very pertinent questions that underline the insidious nature of the proposal:
Who wouldn't be against help for people struggling to raise their children, put like that it sounds almost reasonable. Almost, but then you need to ask a few questions – who will do the identifying? Perhaps the local authority social services departments dominated by our old friends those Guardian reading, Labour voting, middle class lefties with bad 2:2 in Sociology who have been ruining lives for poor people for the last quarter of a century? What about the help, what shape will that take? Already we have dark threats that the state will take away the children of families that don’t control them properly, because we all know how well Council run children homes have served those children who managed to survive their tender care. And who will be the sort of people who get targeted? Well they won't be white, middle class barristers from Islington will they....
So what does Blair actually say? Well according to the Express he wants the state to sit in judgement on all of us and he wants a government computer project to lead the way:
He is understood to favour computer monitoring of families to predict those who could become involved in anti-social behaviour. Mr Blair said: "I think we need to deal with these particular issues and we actually do intervene, at a very early stage.
"If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early, children are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional, and the kids, a few years down the line, are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves.
"Families identified as likely to go off the rails will face regular checks by social services staff and could be forced to attend parenting classes. At worst, benefits could be stopped or the children taken into care.
Mr Blair said action could be taken "pre-birth", if necessary. The State, he said, should tell teenage single mothers: "Here is the support we are prepared to offer you, but we do need to keep a careful watch on you...because all the indicators are that your type of situation can lead to problems in the future."
It is no co-incidence that another costly computer project is being developed that will be capable, at great cost, of using ID cards to track our movements, nor that the Government has recently lifted restrictions that prevent government databases talking to each other. If a computer programme is also being used to make qualitative judgements on our lives and our potential then we will have an authoritarian state beyond even Orwell's imagination.
Like Charles Anglin I believe that Blair has grown beyond parody, the scary thing is that none of his potential successors are lining up to condemn him for it. What disturbs me more is that a quick search of the Liberal Democrat website's news pages finds not a single word on the subject by an official spokesperson either.
I note from Alex Wilcock's post on this that Norman Lamb did say that “Empty threats to pregnant mothers will do little to restore confidence in a government that has failed to tackle poverty, crime and social exclusion for the last nine years.” This though is very much a pragmatic and mechanistic response rather than an instinctively liberal one.
This interference in our lives, the belief that the state should be moulding individuals into identi-kit human beings, the assertion that young mothers should be dictated to rather than offered support are all liberal issues. They impinge directly on our right to assert our own individuality and to take personal responsibility for our actions. As a party we should be leading the fight against such nonsense and it is the leadership who should be at the front of that charge.
Yes, Tony Blair has failed to deal with poverty, anti-social behaviour and the alienation of many young people from society. That he is seeking to compound that failure by shifting the blame to the unborn truly appalls me.
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Astonished to see you are signing up to this illiberal agenda Martyn. The evidence is out there in communities where anti-social behaviour continues despite all the many measures passed by this government. The Government promised to do away with child poverty, it has broken that promise.
On the subject of lies, it is a lie to say that the Liberal Democrats voted against anti-social behaviour orders. They voted for the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which contained this measure.
On the subject of lies, it is a lie to say that the Liberal Democrats voted against anti-social behaviour orders. They voted for the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which contained this measure.
Yes, we did vote against the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003 because of concerns on one particular measure - exclusion orders. We have since stated that we were mistaken to have done so. The allegation though was that we had voted against Anti Social Orders. That is a lie and one that continues to resurface in Labour propaganda despite it being untrue and refuted over and over again.
There is already a system of health visitors, which has a good image. It would be tragic if this were to be confused, in the minds of the people it exists to help, with an interfering state.
However, when doing a webfetch (the almighty G***** has decreed that we must not use their name as a verb any more) I came across http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4755517.stm
which reveals cuts in health visitor training places. This can be laid at the door of Gordon Brown.
- Frank Little
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However, when doing a webfetch (the almighty G***** has decreed that we must not use their name as a verb any more) I came across http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4755517.stm
which reveals cuts in health visitor training places. This can be laid at the door of Gordon Brown.
- Frank Little
<< Home
