Think of the Children and Lynch a Pervert

New New Labour continues its break with the bad old days as the Minister of Improved Fitness for Purpose dusts off a Spy-4-Yourself Law so sane, humane and workable as to be shelved even under the previous management, who thought the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act a jolly good idea. Presumably because the News of the World appears to want it, the Minister has agreed "to trial (sic) a scheme allowing single mothers to run checks on prospective new partners to ensure they have no child-sex convictions" and to enable "checks on family members or neighbours who regularly look after their children"; family members and neighbours being the only practicable dumping-grounds given New Labour's massive provision of nursery-school places, crêche facilities and so forth. The police and probation services will, of course, "exercise strict controls over what information is revealed". Perhaps the Government plans to compel use of the famously invulnerable biometric identity cards by paedophiles as well as by foreigners, before giving the rest of us the choice. Until that happy day, since even convicted paedophiles may possibly have sufficient imagination to change their names if they wish to indulge in further boarding-school antics, it is not entirely clear what the new checks will achieve, except perhaps the sense that single mothers, too, may be allowed to participate in the forthcoming Citizens' Police State.