“When I wrote in this newspaper last Wednesday about the politically correct monster roaming Britain, stamping on innocent, lovely moments between adults and children, it seems that I struck a chord with many people.
The most idiotic rules are being invented and ruthlessly applied: no cuddles between teachers and primary school kids; no competitive sports; no splinters to be taken out of fingers by teachers. Common sense, and common decency, seem to have flown out of every window.
In the past week I have learned that this appalling nonsense is everywhere, and the nation is rightly furious.
This is my diary of the week.
I am invited onto Richard and Judy's programme, and they ask me, incredulously, whether it is really true that a senior executive of a major children's charity rebuked me for kissing the top of a small boy's head? Yes, I say, it is.
Richard asks whether anyone seriously thought I was going to abuse the child? And that, of course, is the point. Did that charity worker put a sinister connotation on the kiss? Was she trying to protect the child from me? No. She was merely applying a jobsworth rule which insists that adults, in her professional world, are not allowed to respond spontaneously to children with genuine affection…
(A) girl who spends a few hours a week working as a reading mentor tells me that she has been instructed during her training that when a toddler holds out her hand, she is not to take it. She is never to put her arm around a child…
I am asked to open the new sixth form unit at an outstanding comprehensive school in Fordingbridge, Hampshire. Head teacher Celia Nicholls reveals that she has been reprimanded for calling pupils 'Lovey'. She tells me about a young friend of hers who was given a work placement in a primary school as part of her teacher-training. A little girl fell over in the playground and started to cry, so the trainee rushed over and cuddled her until the tears stopped. She was officially rebuked, and told she must never touch a child.
Who in heaven's name is making up these rules?…
There's a report in the papers this morning that a local authority has banned the sack race because children might fall over. I thought that was the point of the sack race…
We discuss the whole political correctness labyrinth and whether there is a way to escape the mess...
ITV ring. It is making a documentary about political correctness gone mad. The researcher says she was on her child's school bus when one child got a splinter in his finger. Nobody was prepared to take it out for him...
A friend tells me that she has been told all teachers are now trained not to touch children under any circumstances. A boy at her children's school has diabetes. The school has a trained nurse. All the same, they refuse to give him insulin. They say that instead, he must go to a school with special medical staff…
There's been a story about a man who was videoing his own children on a slide when another mother called him a 'pervert', and even though he showed her the delightful pictures, a member of staff made him stop… A policeman told him that was the way society had gone, and agreed it was madness…
GMTV send me some of the hundreds of stories they have received from viewers, including that of a mum who was rudely instructed she couldn't take photographs of her lovely baby swimming for the first time…
A grandmother was videoing her grandchild in a Christmas concert and the head teacher stopped her. All quite, quite pointless. Who on earth are these people protecting?
Clearly it's time for parents, teachers and childcare workers to stand up for common sense. Let's not pretend everyone is a potential danger to children. Let's allow children to enjoy safe kisses, hugs and cuddles. Let's stubbornly insist on the right to photograph our children's happiest times…
There is a difference between alertness and paranoia, and until we come to our senses, our children will be deprived of the love, fun and adventure they need and deserve.”
‘Who in heaven's name is making up these rules?’
Who’s making them up? Who gave them the office to do so? Who is implementing the rules with such blank-minded relish? Names, telephone numbers, addresses, photographs of them pulling the wings off butterflies.
Shall I tell you the most revealing item of data a detective could uncover that might explain the grotesque, anti-human ideology of these people?
Their political affiliations.
The Daily Mail article Rantzen wrote immediately prior to the one above may be seen here.
A reason for the sudden outrage with a politically correct system she, as much as anyone, helped to construct, is also suggested.
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