I concluded at the time of the riots that of all the things the government now needed to do, it was the married family which most urgently needed to be rebuilt: I was and remain as certain of that as anything I have ever written, and I have been saying it repeatedly
for over 20 years: I was saying it,
for instance, when I was attacking (in The Mail and also The Telegraph), as it went through the Commons, the parliamentary bill which became that disastrous piece of (Tory) legislation called the
Children Act 1989, which abolished parental rights (substituting for them the much weaker «parental responsibility»), which encouraged parents not to spend too much time with their children, which even, preposterously, gave children the right to take legal action against theirparents for attempting to discipline them, which made it «unlawful for a parent or carer to smack their child, except where this amounts to «reasonable punishment»;» and which specified that «Whether a «smack» amounts to reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case taking into consideration factors like the age of the child and the nature of the smack
Children Act 1989, which abolished
parental rights (substituting
for them the much weaker «
parental responsibility»), which encouraged parents not to spend too much time with their
children, which even, preposterously, gave children the right to take legal action against theirparents for attempting to discipline them, which made it «unlawful for a parent or carer to smack their child, except where this amounts to «reasonable punishment»;» and which specified that «Whether a «smack» amounts to reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case taking into consideration factors like the age of the child and the nature of the smack
children, which even, preposterously, gave
children the right to take legal action against theirparents for attempting to discipline them, which made it «unlawful for a parent or carer to smack their child, except where this amounts to «reasonable punishment»;» and which specified that «Whether a «smack» amounts to reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case taking into consideration factors like the age of the child and the nature of the smack
children the right to take legal action against theirparents
for attempting to discipline them, which made it «unlawful
for a parent or carer to smack their
child, except where this amounts to «reasonable punishment»;» and which specified that «Whether a «smack» amounts to reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case taking into consideration factors like the age of the
child and the nature of the smack.»