There is nothing scarier than a paternalistic government system that believes it knows best. Case-in-point: British social services shattering a family with the complicity of the court system, simply because the mother is deemed literally too stupid to bring the baby up.
The same system that failed Baby P scores of times, the same system whose mention chills law-abiding parents' spines, this system today deprives Rachel of her child and forbids all further contact. Adding insult to injury, she was denied the right to have a lawyer of her choosing represent her during the court hearings. No surprise, then, when the court agreed it was in everyone's interest for the baby to be placed for adoption.
In all honesty, I respect and admire social workers and family courts, most of them at least. Those who do their job properly rescue children from harm and ensure their welfare. What makes me boil is the top-down, box-ticking and target-peddling system they are forced to work in, the assumption of infallibility the government fosters in its employees and the defencelessness of the common man against this onslaught. Every government office in Britain should hang a plaque bearing the inscription "You are the government. F**k off and die."
The family is sacred. Every social worker (however professional), every self-righteous judge, every unelected civil servant must get it into their thick skulls that if there is any way to keep the family whole, government must back out and die. Rachel's family seem perfectly capable of helping out, additional tutoring for the baby could be arranged at the council's expense. Instead we are left with a humiliated mother, a distraught baby, the right to a fair hearing buried and the bitter aftertaste of knowing the mediocrity we've slipped into.
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