Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony
Public Inquiry >>
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Julian Assange is finally free ! Tue Jun 25, 2024 21:11 | indy
Stand With Palestine: Workplace Day of Action on Naksa Day Thu May 30, 2024 21:55 | indy
It is Chemtrails Month and Time to Visit this Topic Thu May 30, 2024 00:01 | indy
Hamburg 14.05. "Rote" Flora Reoccupied By Internationalists Wed May 15, 2024 15:49 | Internationalist left
Eddie Hobbs Breaks the Silence Exposing the Hidden Agenda Behind the WHO Treaty Sat May 11, 2024 22:41 | indy
Human Rights in Ireland >>
Green MP Proposes Sweeping Reforms to House of Commons in Maiden Speech Sat Jul 27, 2024 19:00 | Sean Walsh
The sweeping House of Commons reforms proposed by Green MP Ellie Chowns are evidence that the Mrs Dutt-Pauker types have moved from Peter Simple's columns into public life. We're in for a bumpy ride, says Sean Walsh.
The post Green MP Proposes Sweeping Reforms to House of Commons in Maiden Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Heat Pump Refuseniks Risk £2,000 Surge in Gas Bills Sat Jul 27, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
With heat pump numbers forecast to rise, the energy watchdog Ofgem has predicted that bills for those who continue using gas boilers will surge.
The post Heat Pump Refuseniks Risk £2,000 Surge in Gas Bills appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Debt-Funded GB Energy to Bet on the Costliest Electricity Generation Technologies Sat Jul 27, 2024 15:00 | David Turver
So much for Labour's pledge to cut energy bills by £300, says David Turver. Under GB Energy, our bills can only go one way, and that is up.
The post Debt-Funded GB Energy to Bet on the Costliest Electricity Generation Technologies appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Christians Slam Paris Opening Ceremony for Woke Parody of ?Last Supper? Sat Jul 27, 2024 13:00 | Richard Eldred
Awful audio, bizarre performances, embarrassing gaffes and a woke 'Last Supper' parody that has outraged Christians turned the Paris Olympics opening ceremony into a rain-soaked disaster.
The post Christians Slam Paris Opening Ceremony for Woke Parody of ?Last Supper? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Victorian Laws Against Priests Meddling in Politics Are Now Needed More Than Ever ? To Prevent Imams... Sat Jul 27, 2024 11:46 | Steven Tucker
The Muslim Vote wants Labour to abolish Victorian ?spiritual influence? laws that prevent religious leaders from swaying voters, but Steven Tucker argues that in cities like Leicester these laws are more vital than ever.
The post Victorian Laws Against Priests Meddling in Politics Are Now Needed More Than Ever ? To Prevent Imams Doing the Same appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Netanyahu soon to appear before the US Congress? It will be decisive for the suc... Thu Jul 04, 2024 04:44 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°93 Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:49 | en
Will Israel succeed in attacking Lebanon and pushing the United States to nuke I... Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:40 | en
Will Netanyahu launch tactical nuclear bombs (sic) against Hezbollah, with US su... Thu Jun 27, 2024 12:09 | en
Will Israel provoke a cataclysm?, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Jun 25, 2024 06:59 | en
Voltaire Network >>
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (1 of 1)
Jump To Comment: 1Sending young children to boarding school offends 11 articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
By George Monbiot. Published in The Guardian 26th March 1998.
Seldom has the role of the social worker been so clearly spelt out. On Monday the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) released a report arguing that adoption should be used as a first resort for children abused or neglected by their families. Childcare professionals were criticised for their reluctance to place working class children with middle-class families.
Social workers have long suspected that they are employed to police the parenting of the underclass, while turning a blind eye to the abuses perpetrated by their social superiors. Middle class families whose children suffer behavioural abnormalities tend to be referred to the child psychiatrist, not the social worker. Partly as a result, we continue to believe that working class people make far worse parents than middle class people, and should be regulated accordingly.
This judgement, which underpins the IEA report, is false. It persists only because Britain's most overt and qualmless form of child abuse is mysteriously and systematically ignored. Perhaps because this peculiar cruelty is the preserve of the middle and upper classes, it has never been the cause of referral to the child protection register, though both neglect and emotional abuse are clearly demonstrable. It is, if you haven't guessed already, the barbaric tradition of dispatching children as young as eight, seven, or, in the case of one friend of mine, three and a half, to boarding school. This practice offends no fewer than 11 articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Britain signed in 1991. Yet it attracts scarcely a murmur of concern.
I have an interest to declare. Good at work, bad at sport, with heterodox opinions and a crippling stammer, I would have been bullied at any school, but at boarding school the bullying was remorseless and inescapable. Sometimes it lasted through much of the night. To have "sneaked" would only have made it worse, so from the age of eight I was thrown upon my own puny resources. It is hard to believe that the teachers didn't know what was happening: perhaps they thought it was "character building".
Less visible, but just as prevalent, was sexual abuse: new boys were routinely groped and occasionally sodomised by the prefects. Sexual assault was and possibly still is a feature of prep school life as innate as fried bread and British bulldogs.
While some seemed to thrive in this environment, many of us did all we could to get away. One boy escaped at every possible opportunity, sometimes running as far as 15 miles from the school, before the mysterious tentacles of surveillance and collusion that seem to surround this system captured and returned him. Some schools retained boys and girls during the holidays, when their parents were working abroad or simply couldn't be bothered.
I hope this doesn't sound like special pleading from a poor little no-longer-rich boy. It shouldn't be hard to see that everyone in Britain suffers from the brutalisation of the elite. Few of its victims have grown up to fight the system which gave rise to these abuses; many more, like the uncaged bird which returns to its perch, defend and promote it. Empowered by the sociopathy in which they were schooled, they visit their agony upon other people. One had only to look at the retributive misfits of the Thatcher cabinets to see how dangerous is the damage done to the captive offspring of the ruling class.
Our silence on this issue is astonishing. The NSPCC has never compiled a report on private boarding schools, has no data and no information. Prep school children are shielded from social workers; the teachers, like everyone else in this system, close ranks. Old boys argue that the harshness of their schooling made them the men they are. In truth, early boarding is no more character building than any other form of brutalization. Private boarding schools strive to turn every boy into a monstrous Coriolanus, every girl into a mannered debutante. Character emerges despite, not because of, this system.
The insatiate middle class, having preyed upon its own, now demands the children of the unemployed. Yet, if any parenting patterns need examination, they are surely those which are currently least investigated. The IEA argues against taking children into council care, and rightly so. But how can this position be reconciled with the brutal incarceration of tens of thousands of small children, as a result of a different, and decorous, form of parental neglect?
26 Mar 1998