Saturday, February 07, 2009

It's me you should feel sorry for

What is it with social workers? Do they spend so much time around people obsessed with victimhood that they end up as morally dysfunctional as the people they are supposed to support?

The disgraced head of the Haringey department that so completely failed Baby P comes out of hiding to tell us that it is her we should be feeling sorry for - her and her like.

In her first interview since her dismissal in December, Ms Shoesmith said that Mr Balls had created a blame culture that put children at risk by demoralising social workers. She said that in the aftermath of the Baby P trial she had contemplated suicide and received death threats from members of the public, which led to her receiving police protection for herself and her daughter.

No offence, luv - but who gives a fuck about you? Shame Baby P couldn't get "police protection" from the ever present threat of death he lived under - but then again he's so unimportant compared to you, eh?

I have no love for "Mr. Balls" (just call him Balls), but it's not him that created the "blame culture" specifically, but the whole left wing movement which has spent its entire history finger pointing, but never accepting any responsibility. When no one ever owns up to responsibility you get a "blame culture" - that is the way it works.

Well, guess what - you've been found out and found wanting. A generation of socialist doctrine and "liberalism" has destroyed the traditional family - as the left wanted - particularly in the lower classes and replaced it with unmarried mothers and fathers who flit from relationship like flies around turds.

Given that analogy, why are they surprised that it's just a pile of shit?

6 comments:

JuliaM said...

Check out 'CiF' - even the usual 'awww, social workers are misunderstood' bunch are frothing with rage at this woman, and her refusal to accept any blame...

TheFatBigot said...

The irony, the very sad and tragic irony, of the leftist blame culture is that only a select few are the subject of blame. Private business, bosses of all kinds, landowners and toffs are to blame for everything. And then at government level the person with ultimate responsibility must always be absolved from blame and have it heaped on the next person down the chain of command, in this case the whinging Shoesmith.

There is a serious role for blame in a civilised society. Parents who neglect and/or mistreat their children should be first in line, and it is the bodies with responsibility for child protection who should be heaping it on them. But no, they doesn't fit the model.

The new blame culture can't blame Baby P's mother for keeping him in filth and standing by while he is beaten and has his fingernails pulled out. She is on the victim list not the blame list, and another horrendous death results.

Maybe Balls is objectively to blame in some way, but I'm not sure how. Shoesmith and those she managed had the responsibility to protect Baby P and their failure to blame the mother and protect the child puts them directly in the firing line. And quite right too.

It might or might not be justified for Balls to pass the buck downwards but that is neither here nor there. Once the proper target for blame is identified it becomes a bottom-up not top-down issue. The mother fails, so those responsible for protecting the child either act or get the blame passed up to them.

Either way, Shoesmith doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Stan said...

I think we need to understand the difference between blame and responsibility. I need to write a post to explain what I mean, but there is a growing trend for people in authority not to accept responsibility for the failings of the department they head. I'm not suggesting that a head of department should resign over every individual incident, but when an incident demonstrates systemic failures within a department then the head must take responsibility for that.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

What incensed me was her admission that her department had seen Baby P no less than sixty times. SIXTY TIMES!

How many times do social workers need to visit to decided whether or not a child is in mortal danger? They even ignored police advice that the child should be removed from the parents and this odious woman has the gall to go on radio and bleat about the way she was treated. Anger doesn't even cover how I feel about this.

Stan said...

In her interview, Shoesmith made some comment about whether we'd sack a borough commander every time some kid got knifed. A disingenuous analogy at best. If the kid got knifed with 50 police officers standing around watching and doing nothing - well, then there may be some comparison, but otherwise not.