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11 January 2006 More legislation trailed on the anti-social behaviour agenda What are we to make of a war criminal, who took the country to war on a pack of lies killing tens and tens of thousands of people and making the world even by the analysis of his own intelligence services a much more dangerous place, preparing for another election with an agenda about 'Respect'? Which seems to be based on sending children to jail, fining people for being drunk, punishing parents of children who bunk off school and generally humiliating everyone all round? The latest trailed proposals include, apparently:
The section on parenting orders states; enable schools and local authorities to
make earlier use of parenting contracts,
enabling both contracts and orders to be
used where the pupil has not been excluded;
and empowering schools to apply for
parenting orders. This would appear to be giving the power to schools to apply to a court for parenting orders when no 'offence' has taken place. Currently a parenting order can be applied for when;
It would appear then that any kind of flimsy notion that currently exists that there should be some definable wrong-doing before a parenting order can be made (if you count the largely arbitary exclusion of a school student as definable wrong-doing) is vapourised. The proposal is simply that teachers can request a court to make a parenting order. This is 1984 with a vengance. At a superficial reading the document appears to be continuing the agenda of targeted power operations against the poorest and most disadvantaged people, that Labour has become famous for. Here's an example about people who've been evicted (under the new legislation that allows people to be evicted for 'anti-social' behaviour):
We are also considering how to encourage
those involved in persistent anti-social behaviour
to engage with intensive family support. One
option would be to introduce sanctions for those
people who have been evicted for anti-social
behaviour and then refuse to take up offers of
help. Sanctions could include financial penalties
or housing benefit measures. This would provide
a very strong incentive to encourage these
households to undertake rehabilitation when
they have refused other offers of help.
Or make them homeless. On the basis of the two examples above the Respect Agenda appears to be another twist of the screw targetting the most messed up and vulnerable people in the country; known euphemistically as 'challenging families'. This really is akin to the Nazi's targetting vulnerable, marginal groups to strengthen the body politic. The people who are messed up most by a materialistic capitalist society thus become the fodder for a new and profitable industry of correction.
As Tony Blair writes in the forward to this vindictive document:
They [stable families and strong (sic) communities] are the essential foundation within
which individual potential is realised, quality of
life maximised and our social and economic
wellbeing secured.
This is the Adam Smith philosophy of life, that its highest purpose is the pursuit of economic prosperity, with the saccharin pseudo-value of 'quality of life' added as an after thought.
Some useful links
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