Much as I admire all those dedicated people who run in the London Marathon I am always slightly resentful of the fact that I am trapped in my home for the whole morning of the event, particularly when the weather promises to be good and I am itching to get out and make the most of the sunshine. I suppose of could always walk…talking of which –
Training starts in earnest next week for the ‘Race for Life’. Having participated in this fundraising event twice in the past I am keen to do it again and hopefully beat my previous ‘time’ for this 5k run/walk/crawl. I never bothered training the previous times (being much younger and more confident in my abilities) but this time my running mate and I have decided on a strict training regime. Well, my friend has, as she has invested in a reinforced ‘running bra’ and is determined to get her moneys worth, so from next week we are going walking/running/crawling three times a week. Time and Life allowing.
The Marathon weekend is a sign that summer is just over the horizon. Greenwich Park is still filled with daffodils which were late blooming this year and today it looked amazing, lush and vibrant, filled with flowers and people. Driving around town the trees hung heavy with blossom and the added splashes of colour from the red Virgin banners (Virgin are this years sponsors of the marathon) draping the streets added to the feeling of summer anticipation.
Last night I ventured into Welling, the old home of the old BNP, or National Front as it was. Welling has a long, wide high street with lots of pubs and restaurants. It was filled with flags of St George and hoards of people out celebrating St Georges Day. I was quite taken aback. Admittedly most of the revellers were young and are probably out en masse on a Friday night anyway and have just swapped their chav outfits for chainmail and swords. My friend and I went to a lovely Greek Restaurant and had the most wonderful meal in a very ambient setting while the Georges outside drunkenly slayed their dragons. Kleftiko beats sausage and mash any day. When I got home I took the dog out for a walk. It was after midnight and a couple of miles from Welling and the streets were empty. Kent mayhem, London serenity.
The Guardian has launched a 'Know Your Nation' series. They have listed Buddhism as a 'Religion' and I was sad to see there are only 144,453 Buddhists in the Nation. There are actually more Jedi Knights than Buddhists! 390,127 people claimed to be Jedi Knights after an Internet campaign. 'Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.' Yoda. Hmmm. Yoda, like a Buddhist, speaks he.
I felt sorry for the United Brethren. All four of them.
The Guardians Q&A this week put the usual Q&A questions to several party leaders, including, of course, the big 3.
When asked ‘which living person do you most despise and why?’ Nick Clegg responded ‘I used to work with an EU bureaucrat who destroyed the careers of some good colleagues’. I found this response interesting. Clegg was likely to be banking on the EU bureaucrat to be reading the interview and he must relish in being able to deliver this jibe. It was interesting also because it was a very honest answer. Compare it to Gordon Brown’s trite ‘I think hate’s quite a destructive emotion and anyway I despise regimes more than people’. Cue halo. David Cameron named name –‘Robert Mugabe’ a nice safe answer. More modern than ‘Adolf Hitler’ but the same thing. I like that Clegg personalised his hate and I can think of some (non EU) bureaucrats that I despise for exactly the same reasons as Clegg.
The Judge is the recent Shoesmith versus Haringey/Ball/Ofsted case noted that had Sharon Shoesmith, the bureaucrat charged with the failure of Haringey Council to protect Baby Peter, who was killed by his mother, her lover and a lodger, whilst under the ‘protection’ of Social Services, 'been more overtly apologetic at the press conference that followed the news of what had happened to Baby Peter she may have faced less hostility from the public.’ He continued ‘ In short periods such as these fates are sealed’. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. How many of us wish we can go back and undo a moment of ill judgement? At this press conference Shoesmith defended her staff and showed graphs of the progress made by her ‘three star’ services. Justice Foskett rejected Shoesmiths claim that she had been unlawfully dismissed after the details surrounding the case of Baby Peter became public. However he accepted that it appeared she had been treated unfairly by both Haringey and Ed Balls, Children’s Secretary, and he was critical of Balls for telling a press conference convened to announce her removal in December 2008 that Shoesmith should be dismissed without compensation. ‘It was wrong to give support to that position no matter how strongly some people might have felt about it’ the judge said. The judge also had ‘misgivings’ that that Balls had made comments about Shoemsith at the press conference when she had had no opportunity to refute them.
Oddly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Judge found that ‘Ofsted had met its obligation of fairness’ although he did add that ‘There are strong grounds for thinking that the claimant and others whose roles might be questioned did not have a full, fair and measured opportunity to put over their position about their own personal responsibility for what was found, but that did not invalidate what Ofsted did.’ However he was, it would seem, unimpressed by Ofsted saying that ‘the court would "rapidly grind to a halt" if parties in cases regularly failed like Ofsted in their duty of candour’.
Balls still insists he acted appropriately. In a statement, Balls said ‘Eighteen months on, and following lengthy scrutiny, the judge, in his considered and extensive judgment, has found that my decision to remove Sharon Shoesmith from the post of Director of Children's Services in Haringey was, indeed, lawful and that, in directing her removal and replacement, I acted fairly and properly.’ Christine Gilbert, head of Ofsted said ‘I am pleased that the judge's conclusion is clear: Ofsted's inspection process has been vindicated.’ Hmmm, the same inspection process that had previously given Haringey's Children's Services ‘three stars’? Weren't these three stars given during the regime that operated when the abuse of Baby Peter was allowed to continue?
Lynne Feathersone, Lib Dem MP for Haringey quite rightly noted that Shoesmith had to lose her job as Director of Children’s Services but argued that her High Court case had exposed evidence of a culture of ‘cover-up and secrecy’. The buck stopped at Shoesmith and it shouldn’t have done. Shoesmith was out of her depth in the role of Director of Children’s Services and was operating under a false sense of security reinforced by her graphs and 3 stars. She worked in a culture where ‘measurable’ outcomes where the holy grail. She was from a culture where graphs and grades and stars were the be all and end all. So long as a box is ticked, so long as meetings happen within the ‘guidelines’, so long as the people at the top are happy, then everything is hunky dory. Instead of showing humility and empathy at the press conference Shoesmith sealed her fate by trying to prove that it wasn’t her, or any of her team, fault that Baby Peter died. Shoesmith had been conditioned by her years as a teacher, and then as an Inspector, to form an opinion on how something looks on paper, she had rarely been asked to form a judgement on how things actually were in reality. Shoesmith wasn't even a Social Worker, her background was in teaching, and indeed she was very much respected by those in the teaching profession. Shoesmith failed to recognise that what actually mattered was what was happening on the front line and in failing to recognise this she failed Baby Peter. But who created this culture? Who decided that Teaching and Social Care could be lumped together under 'Children's Services' and someone whose expertise was in one of those fields could manage what was happening in the other? Featherstone was near to the real culprits when she said ‘After what happened to Baby Peter, Sharon Shoesmith's position was totally untenable – and rightly so. From this case we see further evidence that the culture of cover-up and secrecy goes right to the top of the Labour Government. Key facts have only come to light because of this court case, facts that the public are entitled to know.’
The comment that the Judge made concerning other high ranking Local Authority staff was interesting – he remarked ‘The manner of Shoesmith's removal will hardly inspire feelings of security among directors of children's services. The prospect of summary dismissal with no compensation and a good deal of public opprobrium is hardly likely to be an inducement for someone thinking of taking the job or, perhaps, in some circumstances, continuing in it.’ I found this prospect heart warming. Karma.
Justice Foskett concluded ‘I cannot think that any party will truly look back at how matters were handled in this case with complete satisfaction’.
No, Judge, but quite a few will look back with relief that they got away with it.
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