British officialdom is debating whether to outlaw all spanking of children — even by their own parents. “Physical punishment by teachers was outlawed in Britain’s state-run schools in 1986 and in private schools in 1999. … Last year, the government committed itself to banning childminders from spanking children, even when they have permission to do so from the child’s parents.” The final step, now being urged by a highly mobilized lobby of purported child advocates, is to extend the ban to parents themselves. The “campaign has little to do with weighing the merits, or otherwise, of spanking as a form of discipline,” writes Brendan O’Neill, assistant editor of the journal Spiked-Online. “Rather, it is driven by a view of parents, and adults in general, as not being trustworthy enough to care for children.” (“Britain debates: to spank or not to spank “, Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 19).
Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’
U.K.: “Legal system is failing fathers, says judge”
Britain: “One of the country’s most senior family judges launched a blistering attack on the legal system yesterday for failing divorced and separated fathers. Mr Justice Munby said he felt ‘ashamed’ after dealing with a man who had fought unsuccessfully for five years to see his daughter,” the mother having ignored contact arrangements and groundlessly accused him of abuse and domestic violence. (Sarah Womack and Yolanda Copes-Stepney, Daily Telegraph, Apr. 2).
Reparations: the British must pay
Three new reparations campaigns are aimed at perfidious Albion; if they succeed, we propose going after them for their burning of American towns during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812:
* In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Traboulsi, who is president of the local Christian Democrats, has filed a $67 billion (U.S.) claim against Britain in a local court, citing the unlawful occupation/exploitation of the Falklands/Malvinas islands since 1833 as well as “the theft of the River Plate Viceroy treasury in 1806”. What, didn’t any lawyers advise him to file in a U.S. court? (“67 billion dollars claim for ‘Malvinas usurpation'”, MercoPress, Mar. 10.)
* Ten plaintiffs are suing Lloyd’s of London in New York, demanding that it pay reparations for having written insurance on slave ships hundreds of years ago (“Slave descendants to sue Lloyd’s”, BBC, Mar. 29). Some in the British press are taking at face value the image attorney Edward Fagan would like to present of himself as the “feared New York lawyer who extracted huge Nazi gold settlements from German and Swiss companies” (“Slave descendants sue Lloyd’s for billions”, The Observer, Mar. 28); they should have read our Jun. 24-25, 2002 report (see also Aug. 8, 2003; Jan. 17-19, 2003; Nov. 17-19, 2001).
* “A half forgotten colonial expedition to subjugate a querulous African kingdom more than a century ago could bankrupt Britain if a Ugandan king succeeds in bringing a ?3.7 trillion suit against the Crown.” During a five-year war in the 1890s the British deposed King Kabalega II of the Bunyoro kingdom, and his descendant, named King Solomon, has now retained lawyers in both Uganda and London and plans a legal action in the latter city. “But the king’s compensation claims do not appear to enjoy much support from his subjects. ‘This is very wrong,’ said Aisha Kungozo, 24, a teacher who runs a tiny school for 16 children in the village of Mparo outside Bunyoro’s capital, Hoima, where the royal palace is situated. ‘The British built schools and houses for us. They gave us medicine. They did more to help us than any omukama [king] ever did.'” (Adrian Blomfield, “African king aims to bankrupt Britain”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 13).
U.K.: “New law threatens Punch and Judy shows”
“Punch and Judy, the puppets who have thrilled British children for almost 350 years, may disappear from Britain’s beaches because of a new law requiring puppeteers to apply for entertainment licences.” There are currently 300 Punch and Judy shows across Britain, typically roving from one spot to another where there are strolling families. The “booths are already liable to inspection from councils. The new rules will force them to apply for an additional entertainment licence each time they change pitch, which will not only be expensive but could take up to four weeks to process.” (Rajeev Syal and Graham Mole, “That’s not the way to do it: new law threatens Punch and Judy shows”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 21). The law could also imperil other traditional English street entertainments such as strolling clowns and — yipes — Morris dancing (“Circus clowns say show must go on”, BBC, Mar. 24). Update Jan. 2, 2006: law took effect in November with only limited exemptions.
U.K.: fear of three-in-row swings
“The arrival of the American-style compensation culture is turning open spaces and public parks into dreary, fun-free, soulless places, the Government’s architecture and building advisers said yesterday. … The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) estimated that the cost to local authorities of bogus or excessive compensation claims was ?117 million a year,” enough to pay for an additional 3,900 park keepers, it estimates. The report “highlighted the removal of a swing from a playing field because it faced the sun and could blind children. Another regular occurrence, it said, was the removal of three-in-a-row swings because the outer swings could hit the one in the middle.” (Charles Clover, “Compensation culture ‘turns our parks into dreary, fun-free deserts'”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 25)(related site).
“Blair ally attacks British ‘culture’ of compensation”
“Britain suffers from a ‘compensation culture’ that deprives schools and hospitals of nearly ?700 million a year that could be spent on extra teachers and nurses, a close ally of Tony Blair says today. Stephen Byers, the former Trade Secretary who advises the Prime Minister on policy, is calling for sweeping legal reforms to stop funds being diverted from public services to those who ‘blame, claim and gain’ if things go wrong.” In a speech in Birmingham, Mr. Byers called for a national debate on claim payouts that have reached ?200 million a year for schools and ?477 million for claims against the National Health Service, enough to hire 8,000 teachers and 22,700 nurses, and have encouraged excessive caution in service provision, as with teachers’ reluctance to lead field trips (see Mar. 2). Among possible remedies: no-fault compensation, use of alternate dispute resolution, curbs on “no fee, no win” legal practice, and tighter scrutiny of misleading advertisements by lawyers. (Toby Helm, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 10). For many related posts, see our UK category.
Welcome New Statesman (UK) readers
The well-known British magazine mentions us in the course of an article taking a more favorable view than our own of the spread of “compensation culture” across the pond (Stephen Grey, “Turn to the lawyers for justice”, Mar. 8). Also in the U.K., the Risk of Freedom Briefing, edited by Roger Scruton, runs a condensation of one of our writings from last year (Walter Olson, “Litigation Un-Limited”, Issue 18). The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin quotes us on the record number of applicants to law schools, in an article alas not online (Jerry Crimmins, “Record crowd knocks at law school doors”, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Jan. 13).
Also not online is a Feb. 16 symposium on litigation reform at Business Insurance magazine, which asked the question: “At which level of government are tort reforms best aimed?” Our response: “Trial lawyers lose because they can’t be everywhere at once. If they have to worry only about fighting running skirmishes at the state level, they’ll usually do pretty well at blocking reform. But when a big campaign goes on for federal-level tort reform, even if it fails — which it usually seems to — a bunch of states will often manage to pass serious reforms, as happened last year in Texas and elsewhere. Washington also has an indispensable role to play in setting ground rules for state-court lawsuits against out-of-state defendants, not to mention the large class of cases that arise under federal law.”
“Gravestones pulled down in safety scare”
“Tens of thousands of gravestones across Britain are being deliberately toppled by local authorities, often without the knowledge of relatives of the dead. The cull is being undertaken because councils fear legal action if a wobbly headstone were to fall over and injure or kill someone.” Several children have died in stone-toppling incidents. “Bereaved relatives visiting cemeteries are frequently unaware of the council’s plans, and are horrified when they come across hundreds of stones lying on their sides. In some cases, they have rung the police to report vandals, only to find that their elected representatives were to blame.” (Jonathan Petre, Daily Telegraph, Dec. 26).
Chasing clients in the U.K.
“One of the most relentlessly aired advertisements on daytime television this summer is for a contingency law firm touting for business. The advert shows a woman spontaneously falling off her office chair. It seems she will never walk again, until a kindly lawyer reminds her there is no such thing as a simple accident, and hands her a cheque for ?4,000.” (Stephen Robinson, “No one is safe from health and safety regulators”, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13, 2003)
U.K.: “Union tells teachers to end all school trips”
Britain’s “second biggest teaching union advised its 223,000 members yesterday to stop taking children on school trips because ‘society no longer appears to accept the concept of a genuine accident’.” Members of the NASUWT union have been blamed, and in one instance sentenced to a prison term, after students drowned on outings in two separate incidents. “Because of growing allegations of abuse, the union has also advised members not to give children a lift in their own vehicles, not to place themselves in a ‘one-to-one situation’ with a child and not to drive a minibus on an educational visit.” The largest British teacher’s union, NUT, disagrees with NASUWT’s stand and says it continues to view field trips as essential. (John Clare, Daily Telegraph, Feb. 19).