Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Cameron in Afghanistan

I fear we can expect nothing new or bold or radical from the Prime Minister’s visit to one of the most corrupt regimes in the world, for whom our native blood is constantly spilled in a fruitless endeavour to enable its authority to fuction outside a few fortified enclaves. This enterprise can never work because it was flawed at the start.

Planners, including and especially the Generals, were blind to history, to culture and to experience not only of the British Empire but also the Soviets. None had ever tamed this  region, which is a composition of self organised war lord dominated tribal localities with a basic economy reliant on illegal production of opium for export and a social structure which has majority local support, but which is to our eyes medieval. 

Add to this the supreme incompetence of the old War Office, now the Army department of the Ministry of Defence, which cannot even organise proper equipment and resources for what is in world terms a tiny army, which ironically is made up of maybe the best troops in the world today. These brave service men and nowadays women, give their lives attempting to do what can be done only in the dreams of Whitehall delusion.

The only question outstanding now for Afghanistan is how to make a dignified withdrawal as we did from the disgraceful war in Iraq. If the Americans want to carry on they can. In the end they will come home too. The streets of London and the towers of New York will neither more nor less safe as a consequence.

Child Protection

Another review has been ordered into the way Social Services carry out the function of child protection. I have no doubt that there can be improvements in the operating practices of social workers to give them more time with children and less time with paper. This is welcome because so far I do not think the inherent problems have been tackled. 

I strongly believe that at the core of any reform should be a change in the legal structure under which all this operates from an adversarial system to an inquisitorial one, of the type generally favoured on the Continent and practiced by Coroners in England. The delicate and emotional nature of family crisis at all levels involving children should not be subjected to the additional strain of a battle between opposing lawyers. Rather it should be subject to painstaking and careful inquiry by properly trained court officers working directly to the investigating Judge.

In this way social workers would have fully trained professional support when investigating suspected cases of child harm, which would be more direct and better suited than the police. Parents under suspicion for whatever reason would not have to fear loss of their children without just cause. 

It would be hugely more efficient and cheaper and would release social workers from their investigative responsibility while leaving them with their welfare role. In the end this is what their calling is and where the greatest social need arises.