Thursday 28 August 2014

Rotherham child abuse scandal

I am somewhat incredulous at the current debate around the child abuse scandal in Rotherham. Why is there any debate at all about a bunch of incompetents keeping their jobs, which lets face it, are about as important as it gets. As a parent, I happen to believe keeping children safe is probably the primary thing any half decent human being should aim to do. The fact that people were paid large salaries and decided that they couldn't be bothered is pretty much the end of the argument.

Let me draw an analogy. I have run a rock and roll band for the last 35 years. Clearly this is on a different planet in the scale of importance. So lets for arguments sake say I am auditioning a new drummer and I say to the candidate "We are going to play a cover version Rebel Rebel by David Bowie at the audition, so make sure you've learnt it". Just suppose he turns up and when we start playing it, we realise he's not bothered to even listen to it. We'd show him the door. Why? Because he clearly isn't interested in doing the job which he was engaged to do. It isn't hard is it?

What is interesting is that the whole scandal is being blamed on "political correctness". I find this a rather bizarre conclusion. What do we blame the Jimmy Savile, the Rolf Harris and the Cyril Smith scandals on? All of these scandals have one thing in common. People didn't do the job they were well paid to perform. As Savile roamed the wards of hospitals, preying on unsuspecting minors, hundreds of people saw what was going on. None of them did anything about it. In my book, they are all just as guilty as the actual perpetrators, as they were facilitators. Whilst the Savile type characters did it for perverse self gratification, those who were getting paid a wage to look after people and didn't are a different breed. They pocketed the cash and sat on their hands.  There is no excuse and the sooner we start sending the message out that if you work in the public sector in a position of responsibility, with a big salary and you don't do your job, you will lose your job and you pension, the sooner these sort of terrible scandals will stop.

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