'Former Education Minister David Lammy, who represents the Tottenham area of North London where last summer's disturbances started, says working-class parents need to be able to discipline their children physically to deter them from joining gangs and getting involved in knife crime. Calling for a return to the Victorian laws on discipline, Mr Lammy said parents were 'no longer sovereign in their own homes' and lived under constant fear that social workers would take away their children if they chastised them.'
A Labour MP? - Incredible stuff! Nonetheless, great care must be taken to ensure that only 'reasonable chastisement' ever takes place. When it has not, that is the only point where society should be allowed to meddle.It worked previously - it should work now. Don't tell me about the exceptions - I have heard them all. But let us not get into 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater'.
