This doesn't really belong in the news thread, but it's worth pulling out. The Sunday Herald is a very respectable Scottish broadsheet paper, and the subject matter is hardly the most original insight, but this is an extraordinary, tortured and conflicted op-ed piece.
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/d...2494056.0.0.php Really is excellent, if somewhat worrying, reading. I've only properly read the one on banks so far but will definitely read the rest.
The first article echoed some inner conflicts I've always had. As much as I hate the 'mob mentality' of the kinds of people who'd really like to bludgeon this Robert Cunningham to death, I've never, ever been able to believe or trust anybody whose first instinct is to forgive, and as I read about these tragedies I completely share that mob's seething hatred for murderers, rapists, nonces, et al.
But I'm harmless ol' Mikey who wouldn't hurt a fly. And I'm not even being facetious.
It's a very interesting piece, although I can barely read it thanks to the stream o'consciousness style.
My only reaction on seeing the TV news reports was to scoff at the idea of an "independent inquiry" into the "failings" of social services. Pound to a penny this will solve nothing, and there are similar odds that this is only happening because it's good media management. Instead of sinking (say) a couple of million quid into an inquiry, why not spend the money on the social services themselves?
Oh, but they FAILED, didn't they? They failed the KIDS, so giving them more money would be WRONG. Instead, let's spend money finding out WHY they failed!
Does anyone really believe that social services can be improved to a point were they are able to protect 100% of vulnerable kids? That seems a bit unrealistic to me, and I'd question the judgment of anyone who disagreed. So why is it that every time one kid dies in horrible circumstances, we need to spend money on investigating something fairly obvious (it's hard to protect kids from bad parents) instead of spending money on, y'know, protecting kids from bad parents?
As for Cunningham... I don't know. I honestly don't. True, boring story - I got to meet Paul Hill (one quarter of popular Eighties group The Guildford Four) soon after he'd been released from jail. Ever since, I've found it impossible to put any faith in media reporting of criminal cases. I don't trust the courts, so there's no fucking way that I'm going to trust the court reporters.
Cunningham is almost certainly scum, but I don't know anything about what actually happened, so I'm not going to bother having an opinion about it, or him.
I'd like to give a child killer a kick, and I know it's not nice to give him a kick, but I don't really see that being much of a problem, whereas the writer seems to be tortured by this duality.
Odd.