The John Blunt column

WE are already witness to condoms being dished out in youth clubs to under-age youngsters and free needles being given to scum drug addicts.

But if the encouragement to break the law that goes with this is one thing that the do-gooders are content to ignore, what, other than criminal insanity, can you call the latest development in this supposedly socially-responsible trend?

For now we find National Lottery money being used to supply condoms to male prostitutes as young as 12, courtesy of the Leeds-based charity named Men Who Have Sex With Men Action in the Community, which is receiving a £74,500 grant from the "good causes" fund.

It is all very well them saying that they are promoting safe sex and fighting the spread of AIDS, but what they are also promoting is illegal under-age male prostitution and, worse, colluding with paedophiles.

If that is a good cause, pardon me while I vomit.

Argument weighted against a caring couple

TWENTY-SIX stone Stuart Meadwell and his wife, Julie, have been told by social workers that they can't adopt a child - because he's too fat. The faddish social services department in Norfolk - the same one which stopped a mixed-race couple from adopting a mixed-race child because they did not properly understand racial issues likely to affect the youngster - said Stuart's weight could harm his health and so impair his ability to raise a child.

Notwithstanding the fact that there are no doubt thousands of obese parents successfully bringing up children all over the country, I would advise Mr Meadwell to try another form of appeal with this bunch of do-gooders.

He should declare himself gay - and, then, in these stupidly politically-correct times, he would be declared an ideal adopter, no matter how much he weighed.

Truants won't heed Labour

ADMITTEDLY, the government's looting of the National Lottery to the tune of £200million to set up after-school homework clubs is for a far better "good cause" than toffs' opera and other airy-fairy schemes that money has gone on.

But if the government is set on curbing truancy - now involving nearly a quarter of all schoolchildren, according official statistics - it is hard to see how the offering them even more school will work the trick.

Feckless under-achievers are hardly likely to see the attractions or benefits of voluntarily staying on at school in the evenings when lolling at home gawping at the telly or roaming the streets during the day seem to be the preference of so many. If the government wants to reduce the numbers bunking-off and preparing for adult membership of the anti-social underclass, it would do better to spend this money on re-introducing the old-style truancy officers who used to deal with the problem most effectively by collaring the stay-aways and putting their shiftless parents in court.

How often does that happen nowadays?

Anguish finds its price in Karli story

THE anguish that snatched new-born baby Karli Hawthorne's parents went through is unimaginable.

But, clearly, the stress they underwent during the long hours before her recovery did not affect their ability to realise how much their stolen little one meant to them.

For even as the baby was being handed back to them at the Basildon Hospital in Essex, where she was snatched, they were demanding bids in sealed envelopes from the media for the exclusive story of their ordeal.

How sickeningly exploitive can you get - cashing-in on the theft of a new-born baby? I do not know what tiny Karli will think of her parents' ruthless greed when she is old enough to understand. But I can tell them now that the nationwide relief over her rescue was quickly followed by equal amounts of disgust after what came next.

And, for heaven's sake, what were Essex police doing acting as go-betweens between her parents and the tabloids in this base transaction? Since when has pimping been part of their duty?

Lesson in discipline

I SUPPOSE that, all over the Hodder Valley, there are little bottom lips stuck out like doorsteps as their owners sulk at Christmas being "cancelled" at their school.

And, doubtless, there will be some pouting among parents, too, over head teacher Mrs Barbara Milne-Redhead pulling the plug on Christmas festivities at Brennand's Endowed School in Slaidburn.

The annual Christmas play and lunch are off - in punishment for the pupils' bad behaviour.

Of course, those of us who went to school in the days before stupid liberals took the cane off teachers are not surprised at the baleful consequences. Now, even a tiny rural primary school like Brennand's is plagued by the sort of brattishness that comes from children being only too well aware that they can misbehave like billyo nowadays and get away with it.

Well, thank heavens for the good, old-fashioned outlook of Mrs Milne-Redhead who decides that, Christmas or no, she won't let the louts get away with it.

For look what the staff there have had to put up with - youngsters being rude, answering back and using bad language.

A few swipes of the stick would have solved the problem ages ago. But at least, by this alternative, the children at this school are fortunate - yes, fortunate - in getting a real lesson in discipline.

Now, they know there is a limit. And if parents did more to set one at home, there would be no need for the wise head of Mrs Milne-Redhead to set them better standards too.

The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper.

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