I like the idea of state-sponsored arranged marriages, Ian. You could spice it up a bit by building a Saturday evening gameshow around the process. Get Dale Winton to present it.

Same here. Bloody do-gooders, aren’t we? As Stephen Fry once said ‘80% of child abuse occurs in families, and all but one known case of incest, and that turned out not to be incest at all’.

The Moai has an excellent point there, this new spirit of Home Office openness is just begging for some FoIA requests…

Good stuff, I shall look forward to the July 7th inquiry then.

I’m not sure what you mean though, Bob B, how is a rising number of babies born outside wedlock abolishing the family? Are all those babies left in the wild to be brought up wolves or something?

Me and my partner have two children and apart from not having an expensive piece of paper formalising it all we couldn’t be a more sickeningly normal nuclear family. We’ve been together 12 years. It seems to be increasingly the case, in the orbit of my revoltingly liberal social circle at least.

Wouldn’t people who worry about the destruction of the family be better served by campaigning for the abolishment of divorce rather than hammering on about people not wanting to get married in the first place? Marriages falling apart? Force the buggers to stay together.

According to expert testimony, 80 per cent of child abuse actually occurs in families. Abolish families and 80 per cent of the problem can be prevented. Fortunately (?), events are going that way anyway. Over 40 per cent of babies are now born to couples who aren’t married.

That is correct, isn’t it?

PS: can someone explain why the Home Office is going to America to work out what they do with child abuse offenders? Okay, you might want to avoid Belgium (cf Marc Dutroux), but doesn’t any part of the EU have anything to learn from? Not even Sweden (cf Polly Toynbee)?

You know, Muslims are genetically similar to crabs…

As there’s no details given, no street name or rough location, I don’t even know where to take my petrol bombs and poorly spelt placard.

Well you can always go after a pediatrician instead. They’re much easier to find.

Would you prefer knife wielding mobile phone muggers or drug dealers to have access to your children instead ?

The Sweeney child rapist case, which helped to spark off this furore involved the kidnap of a pre-school infant and the use of a motor vehicle. How would moving such a predator a bit further away from a school, or even telling a local community about his presence have made any difference ?