Ed Balls,

Agreed.

Yes, politics is a poorer place without him. Well said Gove.

I loved it, well done Gove, took a bit of courage to write that, I think, because everyone seems to think he (Gove) is a bit of a ....

I find it impossible to forgive him for his part in the baby Peter case. He sacked (illegally) Sharon Shoesmith - the only senior manager I ever recall standing up for her staff at great personal cost to herself. He allied himself to the Sun's campaign against the social workers involved to the extent of appointing the Sun's agony aunt (who had neither qualification nor experience) on to the committee looking at the future of social work. Even Rebekah Brooks admitted afterwards that their campaign against the Haringey staff had perhaps gone a bit too far. Tell that to the social workers who had to go into hiding because of the threats made against them, including death threats.

So no I'm afraid I don't think politics is poorer without him. Nor would I give much credence to any opinion expressed by Michael Gove whatever the subject.

This country seems rather fond of issuing death threats .

I know someone would express an opinion like yours, nightowl. You do realise how comfortingly predictable it was? I hope you have never made any serious errors of judgement or been really wrong about an important issue; you'd have to assign yourself to the metaphorical dustbin too.

BTW, if you can't stand anything Gove might say or do, why did you read the article (I presume you actually read it but, on second thoughts, that's probably a wrong presumption)? Not that I mind either way; I'm just enjoying your predictability.

A small by the bye: death threats to social workers (or anyone) are the fault of those who send them and nobody else.

knew

Obviously I'm not in the know about all the ins and outs of the baby P case, but as I remember Harringay Council (and other agencies) missed numerous opportunitues to have this child removed from abusive carers. Then they tried to limit the findings of the internal report. This directive must have come from above. It was at this point Ed Balls stepped in.

Wasn't this the same authority who also involved in the Victoria Climbié case?

Whether or nor Ed Balls handled what followed well (and I admit to knowing almost nothing about this) no one can defend the lack of cohesion in Harringay Council.

I think his party is poorer without him

There were certainly errors in the way Haringey handled the Baby P case, but Sharon Shoesmith (the Head of Children's Services) was demonised by the tabloids, as though she had murdered the child herself.

Ed Balls then stepped in and sacked her on the spot without any kind of hearing. Subsequently, the courts ruled he acted illegally.

I know nothing of Sharon Shoesmith personally, but it would appear that she was a former teacher, who had a job which was probably beyond her. She had no experience of social care. The problem was caused (ironically as a result of the Victoria Climbie case) by merging children's soocial care and education and creating new roles in 'children's services'. I don't think anybody has the expertise in both fields for the role.

Apparently Shoesmith had been much respected as a teacher, but was naive about social care. She might not have been up to the job, but she really didn't deserve the hatred which was directed at her. Ed Balls caved into populist pressure and fuelled the hatred.

The Baby Peter case was one of the most heartbreaking child abuse cases I can remember. Why should the "boss" not have been sacked? If there were omissions (weasel word for glaring mistakes resulting in a child's excruciating death) why should every person involved not have lost their jobs?
The lack of accountability makes me sick. People offer facile apologies and bleat that "lessons will be learned" and then they clearly are NOT

Gove and Balls have quite a bit in common. Apparently, they're both charming on a personal level and both were rubbish Education Secretaries.

X'd posts with the other Daphne - just to say other people's visceral reactions are their business, death threats are inexcusable and I am not condoning them. If SS was not up to the job she should not have been in it.

The boss probably should have been sacked, because there were problems in the accountability system and it would appear that Shoesmith ignored warnings about the way the system operated, but she had no knowledge of the Baby P case.

Balls acted illegally by dismissing her without any kind of hearing, presumably because he wanted to show he had balls (sorry about the pun).

Shoesmith really was demonised, especially by the Sun. She was almost certainly not up to the job, but she iasn't a murderer. In the UK, even murderers are innocent until proven guilty.

She shouldn't have been appointed. The problem is that nobody has the necessary expertise to head both education and social services. It was a ridiculous decision to combine the roles.

Regardless of whomever wrote the article, I felt the last paragraph a good assessment of qualities I would value in any politician, whether they are of the same political persuasion as me, or not.

I think Teresa May has balls.

The sacking of Shoesmith may have been illegal but that doesn't autmoatically make it wrong. The sacking may have been wrong too but illegality and wrongness are separate and different notions.

Not everything that is legal is right and not everything that is illegal is wrong.

I agree thatbags

Yep, I'm with you there too.

Shoesmith should have resigned; she didn't.

Well said grumppa

@thatbags

I'm not suggesting that it was wrong to sack her. What I am saying is that there are legal procedures for sacking people and nobody is above the law. It's a very dangerous precedent for a politician to override the law.

If the law is to be ignored, who, in your opinion should decide how people should behave? The tabloids? Posters on granny sites? Vigilantes?

I still don't think she deserved the demonising by the press. Unfortunately, the tabloids love their hate figures and people jump on to bandwagons without knowing the facts. I sometimes think real life has become a soap.

Daphne, the child died a horrific death, she was paid a salary as head of the department who were responsible for the child's safety , what did she deserve ?

It was that terrible rag The Sun which led a witch hunt.

“BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS”, ran the front page headline of The Sun following the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly, known as Baby P.

The paper was not only referring to Peter’s mother, Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, all of whom had just been convicted of “causing or allowing” Peter’s death. It had decided the social workers at Haringey Council, who had been involved in the case, and their boss, Sharon Shoesmith, were also to blame.

Of course the social workers and Ms Shoesmith weren't to 'blame' and the campaign against them was an utter disgrace, typifying the worse kind of journalism. This said Ms Shoesmith did herself no favours by trying to repress the finding of an internal enquiry.

Much of the criticism of her then and since has been about the notion that she did not apologise, or was not apologetic enough; and that she, as the accountable director, should have taken responsibility. She says she apologised many times for the failure of safeguarding staff to prevent the death, but she will never apologise in a way that suggests she was responsible for his death. The judge in her court case, she says, in her book published just 2 months ago, pointed out that “public accountability does not mean that heads should roll”. If every children’s director resigned after a child homicide, there would be no one in post, she says. Accountability has to be realistic: “You cannot expect that social workers can prevent every death of every child. You have to remember that this is happening every week, not all of them known to social care.”