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item0044D 746, 747 30 June 2003The liberal Lord Woolf
Recently he was faced with a new Police scheme for "fighting crime" in Essex: see The Guardian. Superintendent Peter Coltman proposed to name and shame convicted local burglars, drug dealers and car thieves in a local poster campaign. The mugshots used would be for current offenders - easily recognisable and identifiable within the communities of Essex. One of the local burglar, Gary Ellis, had the courage to challenge the Police by way of a legal action, alleging that the scheme would threaten his privacy and that of his family, under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. It must surely have been clear, to anybody with an ounce of liberal sensitivity, that such authoritarian Police methods were unacceptable, in any decent society. 
Lord Woolf clearly did not like the Police scheme. But as a judge he was very
discreet, and skilful. He expressed the view that the Scheme
might be lawful, but that a Court
would have to "consider the circumstances of every specific individual",
assessing whether or not in the individual case the public interest in crime
prevention outweighed the need to respect individual privacy under Article
8. He also sounded a warning: "There is a real question", he
said, "whether it would ever be appropriate" to feature a father of
young children (like Gary Ellis, currently in prison for burglary), divorced
with a five-year-old daughter. The poster campaign would undoubtedly
invade the privacy of his children - and the legal question would be whether
or not that invasion was justified. The Scheme also involved a "degree of
unfairness" because it discriminated against those whose photographs were
displayed, while others were not.
Lord Woolf has erected formidable obstacles to the implementation of the Essex Scheme. Every Police selection will face a High Court challenge, and protracted investigative proceedings. The hope must be that this nasty, vicious, illiberal Police method does not re-surface at all. Sadly, Superintendent Coltman said he was pleased with the verdict, because - "We continue to believe that the Scheme is fundamentally right"
Do you share Lord Woolf's instincts? Or do you think he is too soft on crime? Drop me a line
30 June 2003 Polly's Perception
The "childcare" issue, however, needs needs unpacking. For it has a significance far beyond babysitting for those who want to go to work. Starting-point is the critical significance, for child development, of the first five years of life, which Polly Toynbee rightly identifies. And while "children's centres" (CC) will indeed make it far easier for parents to continue in active employment, the rationale of the CC is far more profound than mere child-minding. It is at base an assertion of the 17th century doctrine of parens patriae - the English legal doctrine that the Crown is " the father of the nation", and the notional "father" or guardian of all children in need of adult support. That doctrine underlies the "Ward of Court" tradition, permitting the Courts to step in to protect children against abusive or neglectful natural parents.
And society's concern about pre-school children runs wide and deep. It is laced with fears of the mob, of an under-class, of feral children, unsocialised, ruthless, destructive. Children who do not experience effective socialisation at this early age find it much harder to accept the disciplines of later life, both in childhood and adulthood. Minds that become closed at this age, discouraged, intimidated, suffer grievously throughout life. And if the learning process is not cultivated at this age, if the curiosity of the young child is not stimulated, the disadvantages can endure for a lifetime, and cascade through the generations. The awful intimations of under-class come to be perceived in the First Five Years. While there are grains of truth in some of <img align=left src="http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/drp/bullets/rd_ball.gif">these perceptions, they are for the most part matters of prejudice and misinformation.
"Society" has, however, the keenest possible interest in ensuring a rich, challenging, stimulating and diverse environment for pre-school children. That is the underlying "policy driver" behind Sure Start, and the case for a "children's centre in every community." Where a child's parents or guardians are providing the right environment, all well and good. But if not, the resources of the adult community must be mobilised in other ways to achieve the necessary objectives. 
This is a rich and important vein of political perception. There are plenty of new insights to come, along those lines. Supplementary tuition, arts developments, Summer Schools, holiday-time schemes - these are all manifestations of the introduction, into the life of every child, of "other adults".
What do you think? Drop me a line
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We should be
grateful for the liberal conscience of Lord Woolf, our Lord Chief Justice -
may he never retire! He has
a natural, effortless sense of injustice, which he brings to his
jurisprudence. 
Polly Toynbee has hit the jackpot, by highlighting a new Government
aspiration. The recent Cabinet re-shuffle had one almost-hidden consequence,
namely the appointment of a new Minister for Children.