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Blog • On-the-spot fines

Fines for parents who don’t read to their kids

The Ofsted chief has said that schools should have the power to fine parents who don’t read to their children, or who miss school events. This is the latest extension of on-spot fines, which are increasingly seen as the sole form of persuasion or sanction, and the answer to every social problem. The fine is the one way in which a school can communicate with parents, apparently. A school – an institution which is supposed to have a shared interest with parents in the education of their children – increasingly exerts authority through the use of coercive, pecuniary penalties. There are also…

Blog • Vetting

Making parental emotional abuse a crime

Justin Wiley has written a good piece about emotional abuse at the New Observer. He includes the following pertinent example: “This author worked as a volunteer for his local authority to mentor a young man with “learning difficulties”. The boy attended a special school for young people with disabilities where he was soaked in advice about “child protection”. The result; he wanted me to take him swimming every week. And every week he would accuse me of being a “paedophile”. (Because he’d been told that adult men who take boys to swimming pools are paedophiles). The “Safeguarding” culture generates numerous conflicts like…

Blog • Free movement - visiting artists

Organist deported – problems with visas continue

In spite of the Manifesto Club’s victory in winning reforms to the visa system for visiting artists, it seems that the news hasn’t reached border officials on the ground. Under the permitted paid engagement route artists visiting the UK for a concert or talk are exempt from the heavy-handed ‘points-based visa system’. Yet the star organist Cameron Carpenter – booked to play in Birmingham – was detained for seven hours in an ‘Orwellian’ ordeal, before being deported back to Berlin. Once he found out about the new visa route he was able to return to the UK – with only a short…

Blog • Busking

Camden buskers defy council ban

Camden buskers took to the streets on the first day of the council’s new licence scheme – under which unlicensed busking becomes a crime, punishable with an £1000 fine. Specifically, percussion and wind instruments – all of them! – are banned, and will not be licensed except in exceptional circumstances. In this video, a protesting unlicensed percussionist ad libs on libertarianism, including the lines ‘I walk within my own authority; nobody stands over me’; and (on bureaucrats’ ‘shite’): ‘when you stand up to it, it’s insubstantial’. Interestingly, there wasn’t a council officer in sight; which was great, and suggests that the council…

Blog • Busking

Camden Council’s war on buskers

The Campaign group Keep Streets Live is challenging Camden Council’s draconian new busking law in the High Court. The new law is extraordinarily severe, anathema to this vibrant and chilled part of London with a lively street music scene. Not only will buskers have to apply in advance and pay for a licence, there are also strict rules and conditions for busking which will make the activity all but impossible. The very notion of a licence undermines the nature of busking which is – in the words of Keep Streets Live director Jonny Walker – ‘an informal and impromptu form of entertainment’.…

Blog • Football Fans Not Criminals

‘Yid Army’ charges should never have been brought

It is good news that charges have been dropped against three Tottenham fans for using the word ‘Yid’. But why was such a case brought in the first place? It was last September that the FA put out a statement warning Spurs fans that their ‘Yid Army’ chants are likely ‘to be considered offensive by the reasonable observer. Use of the term in a public setting could amount to a criminal offence and leave fans liable to prosecution’. Tottenham fans had also been told to ‘drop the Y-word from their songbook’ by lobby groups such as the Community Security Trust and the…

Blog • Freedom hotline • Take action!

No to state parents in Scotland

The Scottish government has passed a bill to appoint a ‘named person’ for every child at birth, with the responsibility of ‘advising, informing or supporting the child or young person’. These parental functions will hitherto be allotted to an employee of a health board or education authority (it is specifically stated that the named person cannot be one of the child’s parents). This extraordinary Children and Young Person’s Act exemplifies a shift within child protection policy, from focusing on children ‘at risk of significant harm’, to the state assuming responsibility for ensuring the ‘wellbeing’ of every child – as if the entire…

Blog • Freedom hotline

Security scare over a walking stick

This YouTube video shows a standoff between a British citizen and a police officer. The officer is concerned that the citizen’s walking stick is actually a ‘drinking stick’, filled with alcohol, and demands to search it. The citizen responds that he does not want it to be searched, explaining that if you unscrew the pin it will take ages to get back together. Cue surreal conversation. ‘It’s a walking stick’. Officer: ‘It’s not a drinking stick then?’ ‘I don’t drink’. Officer: ‘It’s unusual to see people walking along with objects like this. Sometimes they have a little dagger in it’. ‘I can…

Blog • Vetting

Child photography banned at National Trust for Scotland site

This email recalls how a visitor to a National Trust for Scotland site was warned at the entrance that he shouldn’t take photographs of children… ‘I recently visited J.M. Barrie’s birthplace home in Kirriemuir, Angus, a building run by the National Trust for Scotland, holding a camera. I was expressly told, as I purchased tickets, that I must not use my camera to photograph children. Mention was made of both child protection and data protection legislation, and also of the possibility of tracing women in refuges via possible posting on social networking sites. ‘It did make me feel that I was being…

Blog • Vetting

Headteacher reports artist mother to police for pictures of her son

I just received this email from an artist, who was reported to the police by her son’s headteacher, because of photos of the artist’s son on her website. This truly extraordinary story indicates the extent to which schools are seeking to regulate photos of children – which stretches to censoring photos in their parents’ artwork… ‘My son’s headteacher called the police in 2010 to my son’s primary school, after seeing pictures of my son on my website. I had had a performance at the Courtauld Institute and my son’s teacher missed it so I gave her a video of myself and my…

Blog • Freedom hotline

Against the criminalisation of spitting

After Enfield Council passed a byelaw banning spitting, other local authorities have been queuing up to do the same. So far, Croydon, Doncaster, and Havering have said that they’ll seek to outlaw the habit. Hillingdon Council, meanwhile, has defined spitting as ‘litter’ and is fining offenders under littering powers. Spitting is often rude – occasionally, in cases of exercise or illness, it is necessary. But should it be criminal? The historic ban on spitting was related to the clear public health hazard of TB, which no longer exists. The objection against spitting is that it is ‘anti-social’. Which no doubt it is,…

Blog • Vetting

Man out walking without a dog questioned as suspected paedophile

I just received this email about a man questioned about why he was out walking without a dog: ‘The (male) head of a primary school thinks he better buy a dog! This is because when he was out walking by the river without one, he was stopped by the police and questioned as to why he was out for a walk without one. Why? Because there were some teenagers congregated nearby, it was one of those sunny evenings when they like to “hang out”. So going for a walk without a dog is now suspicious action…’ This is a classic sign of…