Join the dots

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My six year old daughter just loves join-the-dots pictures. This is fine by me. They help her with counting, something she has always enjoyed. Some clever people thought of creating them with the dots numbered in multiples of two, three and so on to help with learning 'times tables' and sequences. There are also basic alphabetised dot to dots for little people learning their ABC. Of course she also learns fine motor skills in the manipulation of her pencil in a straight line from point to point, patience to make sure she doesn't rush and join the wrong dots just because in her haste it looks likely, and image interpretation as she tries to work out what the completed drawing will be. And then there is the satisfaction of sitting back at the end and looking at the big picture. Perhaps colouring it in if she feels like employing such embellishments.

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Some people need help joining the dots.

Here are a few dots. Can you tell what it is yet?

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• The Independent Safeguarding Authority has been tasked with maintaining another database. This latest in a swathe of state databases will be used to vet anyone, including parents, who has regular contact with children through their church sunday school, Scout troop, football club, and so on. It will be the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world and involves unprecedented delving into the subject's personal and employment history.

• DNA information is held for every person who has come into contact with the police, even those stepping forward voluntarily to help with enquiries. There are repeated calls to extend this to mandatory samples to be taken from every citizen of the UK. Police have been reported to be stopping children for inconsequential matters, taking DNA swabs, then releasing them without charge. Currently the decision as to whether such DNA information is ever destroyed is discretionary. After a long campaign against them, police recently agreed to destroy records of 100 children whose DNA was taken, but who have not been charged of any crime. 17,000 records still exist in Humberside alone.

• Health and Safety inspectors are to be given access to the home to assess whether parents are providing a safe environment for their children. "All practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 [will be asked] to provide home safety advice and conduct a home risk assessment where necessary."

• All telecoms companies and Internet Service Providers will shortly be required by law to keep a record of all emails, mobile and landline phone calls, texts, and the history of websites visited for every person in the country. The new law will increase the amount of personal data which can be accessed by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which is supposed to be used to combat terrorism. The powers enacted by RIPA have already been abused causing millions of pounds of damage to private citizens, the elderly and even holocaust survivors.

• Croydon Council have installed hidden cameras inside private homes, to spy on neighbours, teenagers and potential anti-social groups on the street. This is a pilot for a scheme planned to be rolled out in other areas.

• Lincolnshire is piloting a 'wellbeing' questionnaire of 83 questions for parents to answer concerning their children and themselves. The Dept. of Health wants this to be rolled out to all parents in England & Wales. Questions include whether the child lies or steals, how many takeaways they eat, whether they have many friends, and how well the parents themselves did at school. The information is to be held on a database indefinitely. Filling in the questionnaire is not compulsory, but parents fear that not doing so, like disagreeing with a doctor or arguing with a teacher, will count as a 'black mark' against them and their children will be seen as being at risk.

Have you spotted the picture yet? Can you tell what it is? Maybe some more dots will help...

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• The Children, Schools and Families Select Committee interviewed Maggie Atkinson, candidate for the post of Children's Commissioner. This position exists to "promote the views and best interests of all children and young people." The Select Committee recommended that Ms Atkinson not be given the role as she was deemed not to be independent enough of the DCSF to "challenge the satus quo on children's behalf." Secretary of State Ed Balls declined to take their advice and hired her anyway. There remain serious doubts as to Ms Atkinson's independence.

• Ofsted have stated that they want all parents of home educated children to be CRB checked.

"Current guidance states that parents may employ other people to educate their children and that parents are responsible for 'ensuring that those whom they engage are suitable to have access to children'."

Therefore, they conclude, if the parent has access to their children for the purposes of educating them, it stands to reason they should undergo the same checks as everyone else.

"Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks should be a requirement of registration."

• Home educators also face registration and monitoring to ensure that their children are safe and well and are receiving an education in line with what local authorities believe is suitable. This will give inspectors mandatory access to the homes of families, the power to deny the children's right to be educated outside of the state school system, influence over the curriculum and method of learning which the family uses, and the right to take the child away from parents for questioning. This is to be done with no evidence or suspicion that anything is wrong with the wellbeing or education of the child. It amounts to saying that, if your child is not in school in daylight hours on a weekday, they are vulnerable and need to be safeguarded.

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OK. Have I made this picture plain enough yet? This isn't just about single issues. I've been involved in the battle for the rights of honourable, law-abiding home educators to carry on with their lives unmolested by the state and its minions for quite a while now. Others have been fighting that battle for years, even decades. At every turn the Powers That Be collude to lie and cheat, to defame and patronise us, to get us the hell out of the way because they know what is best for our children, and we can either go along with it or be set aside. And don't imagine independent advice will be heeded. If that advice goes against policy, it will be ignored and the advisor vilified. This is policy based evidence making. This is ideology. Facts and truth have nothing to do with it, let alone free will.

We are distracted by our personal fights, but we need now more than ever to raise public awareness of the overall strategy behind the weapons of suspicion and ignorance being ranged against us. The desperation of the current government to arrange their tools of oppression before the next general election may be their undoing as these sledgehammers are falling at an ever increasing rate. Everyone is noticing because now everyone is affected, or knows someone who is. There can be little doubt now in anyone's mind that we are facing an attempt by state to wrest any remaining personal power and individuality from our hands in the name of safeguarding. Call it Fascism, Communism, Marxism or Communitarianism, it all amounts to the imposition of the will of the government over and above the will of the people. Time to get together with all those good people of like mind and tell them we've had enough.

My next post will hopefully deal with what needs to be done. Here's a hint: Just say no.

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