Tuesday, October 21, 2008

What They Do

The Cameron Years have already provided us with no end of sleazy, obnoxious or just plain loopy pronouncements from the Nu Tories, but one stands head and shoulders above the rest for pure toxicity: Tim Loughton explaining that the only reason respectable members of the public hate social workers is because they're too stoopid to know what social workers 'actually do'.

Rarely can a single statement has summed up so much of what is wrong with a political ideology, illuminating as it does both the elitism and the moral nihilism at the heart of Cameronism. What, for the sake of Loughton's foul argument, are social workers actually doing in a case like this?

Of course, social workers may be acting honourably in trying to stop children being cared for by their own grandparents, but they sure do seem to act like people with something to hide:
On their side were three council officers and a note-taker. On ours were Gail and Graham, myself (invited as a friend) and Norman Lamb, though Social Services had twice rung to say his presence would be ‘inappropriate’ – hinting darkly that there could be facts that the Curlews might not want their MP to hear.

Mysteriously, no such incriminating allegations materialised.
Let's assume Loughton is as morally retarded as he appears - just as an MP, doesn't social workers trying to pressure people not to involve their elected representative offend him?

But, no, thanks in large part to the tacit support of pretendey-cons like Loughton, these people are quite openly fascistic:
‘This is all to do with Mr Curlew not working with the department in a co-operative way,’ she said.
Isn't this like a bank robber blaming the teller for her own murder on the grounds that she should have just handed over the money?

To put it another way, these thugs are justifying their destruction of an innocent family on the grounds that the victims were insufficiently cooperative in their victimisation.

Doubtless, in another dimension Matthew Hopkins is kicking himself for not having thought of that.

Oops, no: can't say that: might imply life after death. Only Marxist atheism is allowed:
Another accusation against them is that they’ve told the children they can have ‘secrets’ from their foster carer.

This may sound incriminating – until you hear what the secret is. The children have been told by their foster carer that they can’t say their prayers: ‘We don’t do God in this house.’

They were upset and Gail reassured them: ‘You can pray in your head. God still hears. It can be a secret.’
And thus was shattered the image of social workers as Marxist fanatics. Needless to say, the negative effects of prayer must be another topic which only people with special social worker jedi training are aware of.
The children’s guardian – appointed by the State...
So at least you know she's independent!

But anyway:
The children’s guardian – appointed by the State – insisted the children had told her they wanted to live with the foster mother. I asked where the conversation had taken place. She said it had been in the foster carer’s house.

‘Would it be helpful to interview them at their grandparents’ house too, in case they are saying what the adults want to hear?’

‘I’m not going to work at weekends,’ she replied. ‘Why not meet them on neutral ground one weekday afternoon?’

‘I’m not committing to anything,’ she said angrily. ‘I’m not going to be told what to do.’
And what's more she won't tidy her room!

Hmmm... shouldn't supposed experts on raising children sound a little less like they're fourteen years old themselves?

And now there's the inevitable sequel.

Again, to repeat a point made above, if social workers are acting ethically, why are they so desperate to prevent public scrutiny? Forget Loughton's blathering, the issue is absurdly simple. Should public servants be able to arbitrary destroy families, try to intimidate the victims from asking their elected representative for help and publicising their case and even attempt religious indoctrination?

To ask it is to answer it. Loughton's position is not sophisticated or nuanced - it's just plain depraved. On the one hand we have degenerate Marxist fanatics who destroy entire families to make trivial political points, on the other soi dissant conservatives who throw their principles under the bus rather than rub shoulders with the common herd. Maybe the question we need to ask is this: what do Tory MPs actually do?

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