A Herbert Thinks of the Children

A survey by the Home Office has found that nearly a quarter of children between ten and fifteen were technically victims of crime last year, although most of the reported incidents were "no more than" playground assaults (good clean fun) or family spats (parental discipline and/or sibling-induced existential perspective). As always, the findings have reinforced the Government's own opinion while also, by contrast, reinforcing the opinion of the opposition. Alan Johnson, who was the stop-gap Home Secretary between the disaster that was Agent Smith and the slightly less humiliating disaster that was electoral defeat, said that the survey had been New New Labour's idea all along and that it provided a further demonstration that crime including violent crime fell consistently under the previous government. No doubt this explains the previous government's much-noted courage and tenacity in facing down tabloid hysteria on the issue, rather than doing anything silly like rushing legislation through without working it out properly or allowing the Metropolitan Police to indulge in a bit of violent crime on their own account. Meanwhile, a Home Office Herbert noted his own long-standing belief that "to date crime measures have offered either a partial or confused picture about the level of offending" and made the radical assertion that "crime affecting young people is a serious problem which must be tackled". The pundits will certainly have a field day with that one. Despite its obvious taste for controversy, the Herbert regrettably failed to impart its opinion on the survey's implications for the sort of pampered opportunist who talks about "broken Britain" while preparing to cut the safety net from under the country's most vulnerable citizens.