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Did you hear the interview this morning on Today with John O'Brien, "programme director of the Vetting and Barring Scheme"? I had to pull over as I was driving, so enraged was I by this awful man and his bureaucrat-robotspeak arguments.
Somehow the story had passed me by earlier in the week:
Philip Pullman, the best selling author, will be banned from reading his books in schools because he refuses to be vetted for a new anti-paedophile database that he said "assumes my guilt".
The writer said the "insulting" requirement to be checked by the new
Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) to speak to pupils sent the message
to youngsters "that the world is a dark and nasty place, where
everybody wants to murder and rape them".
...Mr Pullman is being supported by several other children's authors including
Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake, who object
to their names being on the database.
The interview was beyond parody. The ludicrous Mr O'Brien said it was vital to make authors register because, being familiar names and faces to children, they could "build relationships" with them.
In other words, we are all now suspect paedophiles unless we can prove otherwise - and so children need to be protected from all of us until we can prove we are innocent of paedophile proclivities.
And what will the one consequence of this new demand be? It won't make children who are in the clutches of abusers any safer. All it will do is stop children having the opportunity to hear and meet their favourite writers - and might well mean that many children do not have their minds opened to the joys of reading.
It also raises an important point for us here at the JC. We have just launched our Young Journalist competition.I'm supposed to be visiting lots of schools to talk to them about journalism. I assume this means I need to resgister, too.
Like Mr Pullman, I won't, on principle. So bang goes that career talk for the children.
You really couldn't make it up.