Last week, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard wrote a rather dreadful comment piece in The Times lamenting the role of the Children’s Commissioner and suggesting that there wasn’t any need for such a position: “How about a Ginger’s Commissioner, for the rights of us redheads?” he asked. “What about a Wii Commissioner, for those who want access to computer games?”

As I’m sure many others did, I sighed, tutted and wished once again that columnists of his ilk would get out of their trendy Islington townhouses and dig a little deeper before putting pen to paper. So I was glad to see that Sathnam Sanghara composed a fantastic response to the piece; answering the criticisms with a robust defence. His standfirst said it all: “If this column were about puppies being held in indefinite detention with no judicial oversight, my inbox would be full.”

Attacking government quangos and those paid to head them up is easy fodder for op-ed writers, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t ever seen the title of a government agency and thought: ‘my taxes go to pay for that!?!’.

But I struggle to think of a section of society more worthy of a publicly-funded body that stands arms-length from government and calls it to account. Those under 18 are heavily reliant on the state, from the education they receive, the healthcare they need, or the thousands of them who are looked after through fostering, care-homes or social services. Many young people come into contact with the state through getting into trouble with the police, but for every young person under 18 with an ASBO, there are around 200 who are providing substantive care to a parent or sibling*; massively subsidising the nation’s social care bill as part of a workforce that would be illegal if it was recognised. All this, and yet because they haven’t yet turned 18, the state isn’t accountable to any of them. Earlier this year, young people were even banned from entering Parliament.

Perhaps Stephen thinks that young people should get together and form their own lobby group to ensure their views are heard and counted, just like every other sector does. There are, of course, organisations that do this, and I’ve seen some brilliant examples of where this is occurring (tomorrow for example, young people will sit in the House of Commons chamber to discuss some of those issues). But, by the very nature of their age, young people don’t have the financial resource, or the time, or the knowledge of how the system works, to effectively campaign amongst professional policy makers and politicians. They need adult support and funding. Especially if English isn’t their first language, or they’ve had an unstable upbringing, or they are simply too young to engage in a debate with adults.

Stephen picks on a single comment made by the current Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, as demonstration of the pointlessness of the role. Last year, Sir Al was quoted as saying that using stop and search powers to prevent knife crime could antagonise young people, and this was seized on as ridiculous both by a government minister (Tony McNulty) and a raft of pundits who get paid as much as Sir Al does to file their columns. The original quote follows the introduction of new powers that the police were given to stop and search people even if there was no reasonable suspicion that they were carrying a weapon. Sir Al, quite reasonably, said: “There is a balance here. On the one hand for young people to feel safer by having the presence of the police – but on the other hand making sure the new powers don’t create further antagonism by increased stopping and searching.” To my mind, that is exactly what someone paid to stand up for the rights of children should be pointing out: especially when I know teenagers who line their walls with the Stop and Search receipts they’ve received.

Sathnam highlights the work 11 Million (the organisation that the Children’s Commissioner heads) has done defending the rights of children who are detained, without legal representation, because of the action of their parents.

But if I was to highlight another reason we need a Children’s Commissioner, it is the effect Sir Al and his team had on the use of Mosquitoes, the devices that emit a high-pitch audio sound that only younger people are able to hear.  It is appalling that it took the intervention of the Children’s Commissioner to highlight how indiscriminate these devices were before councils and other agencies started considering and regulating their use. Until then, it seemed no-one in authority concerned themselves with the legal, let alone ethical, consequences of using these devices.

Perhaps when red-heads are subjected to audible irritation because their demographic is deemed a nuisance; or gamers are locked away in cells, without access to any medical facilities, because their mums and dads broke the law, then they will deserve a commissioner who makes sure the government is looking out for them. But whilst the UN deems the UK to be the worst place in the developed world for children to grow up in, then we absolutely need someone paid to argue the case for young people.

Like Stephen, I would love to compile a list of government quangos that should be got rid of, and put the Children’s Commissioner on that list. But unlike Stephen, I’d like that to happen because the state recognises and respects the rights that young people have, rather than his approach: simply deny there is a problem in the first place.

* Calculation based on the statistic of 869 ASBOs issued to young people aged 10-17 in England in 2007,  against 175,000 under 18s who are classed as Young Carers by Ofsted’s Supporting Young Carers report.

Image courtesy of FatMandy. Used under licence.

If you type the name Darryl Marfo into a search engine, you may find yourself ending up in pretty despicable racist forums. You may well find yourself reading the national newspapers that covered his arrest in April. What you won’t find, unless you specifically look for it, is news that all charges against him have been dropped.

Darryl was the inner-London student, brought up by a single mum, who won a scholarship at the prestigious £25k-a-year Pangbourne College in Hampshire. Not only did Darryl win the scholarship, but he excelled, playing rugby for the England Under 16s team, chairing the school council, helping write the school newspaper and ending up as ‘chief cadet captain’, aka Head Boy.

And then, in April, Darryl was at a house party with other students when some sort of fracas broke out. Darryl was on the end of some racial abuse, apparently from a solider from nearby Aldershot barracks, and allegedly “grabbed a kitchen knife”. No-one was hurt in the incident, but the police were called.

Two people were subsequently arrested as a result of the incident. One of them was Darryl.

I’m not for one moment condoning using any sort of weapon, and I wasn’t there, but “grabbing a kitchen knife” could mean a variety of things. Not surprisingly this turns into ‘pulling out a blade’, ‘brandishing a weapon’ and ‘knife brawl’ for the benefit of good newspaper copy.

Several national papers ran the story (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and most stated that parents of other children were demanding that Darryl be suspended from the school. A mother was widely quoted telling the Daily Telegraph: “We are paying £25,000 a year to this school and it’s not what we expect.”  Another said that parents would be writing to the school’s governors to demand action be taken against Darryl. The school, to its credit, said it wouldn’t take any action until the police investigation had concluded. This was especially important as Darryl would be sitting his A Levels whilst on police bail.

Meanwhile, another student (on condition of anonymity) contacted the local paper in Reading, where the other boy who was arrested lived, demanding that this student was innocent: “In our eyes he was a hero. He should never have been arrested… He was identified by mistake by someone who was not at the party.”  An email to Reading’s evening paper (from someone whose sex is known but is not identified) said that the unnamed boy had removed the knife, and stated: “We are proud of what the other Pangbourne pupil did and he should be praised and rewarded.”

But something didn’t stack up with this story. Only the Telegraph made it explicit that it was the other, unnamed boy, who was arrested on the night. Daryl was arrested several days later after he contacted the police about the incident.

And here’s another question: Why was Darryl’s name so freely bandied about (complete with obligatory Facebook photo) when the other boy’s identity was never revealed? Obviously Darryl was the better newsline, but there was no legal reason not to name the other individual, and if it was that easy to get Darryl’s details then it couldn’t have been that difficult to get the name of the other individual? Why did no-one else (not the eyewitnesses, or the people who contacted the local papers, or the concerned mother) want to be identified? Why are the only young people named in any of the newspapers Darryl and his younger brother (who also happens to be at the school)?

And another question: Why were the parents so determined that Darryl should be suspended, but not the other boy who had been arrested? Darryl’s crime was serious, but it also appeared that he had been the victim of racist abuse that night, so surely there were some mitigating circumstances for his alleged actions? There was no suggestion that he had actually threatened anyone with the knife, let alone caused any injury.

And what action, if any, has been taken against the unidentified solider who was responsible for the racist remarks? Why didn’t any newspaper bother itself with investigating this angle? And which of the boys stood up for Darryl against the racist abuse (because they should be named and praised).

I really hope that this is a serious of coincidences, and there is nothing sinister here. But I couldn’t help feel somewhat uncomfortable when I saw the original story, and nothing I’ve seen since has made me feel any better.

Image courtesy of welshwitch36. Used under licence. (The photo has no relevance apart from it was taken in Pangbourne and I quite liked it)

The BBC Radio 4 programme Go 4 It is being axed in May; ending Radio 4′s long-running association with children’s radio (traced back to Listen with Mother etc). There will still be occasional reading of children’s books “when children might listen”, plus of course some radio programming aimed at kids on BBC 7.

In his blog, Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer says that the problem was that kids weren’t listening. In fact, the average age of Go 4 It’s audience was 50. (Edit: The Guardian reports the RAJARs as 22,000 children out of an audience of 450,000).

Now many of those may be ‘noise-seeking listeners’, people using the radio as a distraction whilst they are doing something else. (Indeed, the only time I listen to Radio 4 other than via podcasts is when I’m in the car). But, I guess there are a fair few who actually tuned into Go 4 It, or at least made themselves available to listen, because they liked the subjects covered. There are, after all, thousands of people who love listening to the shipping forecast even though they live nowhere near the sea.

So, if the Radio 4 commissioners are reading this, here’s an idea:  Why not do a show about children and young people’s issues, even if it isn’t aimed at them? And, why not use young people to make the show? There are thousands of young people involved in media projects throughout the country (see Media Box, or the BBC’s very own School Report), and there are some really brilliant audio projects that deserve a wider audience. That’s not to say it’d just be young people’s projects, but produced and researched like any other programme, but on issues that young people care about.

It’d help counter the negative perceptions of young people in the media, an issue you know is serious when even the Guardian and the Daily Mail appear to agree. And it’d give the BBC access to a whole range of new stories, and involve that demographic that serious people at the corporation are worrying about “losing”.

As I suggested in my last post, one of the problems with today’s society is that we are driving a chasm between adults and young people – stopping them understanding each other’s issues. Programmes like Newsround and Radio 1 Newsbeat go some way to explain the adult world to young people; but there isn’t anything in reverse. Perhaps this is the time to introduce it.

And if they are looking for a BBC producer with a good background in youth media projects; they could start here. Other producers are, of course, available.

PS. If you didn’t see the news, Parliament voted to allow UK Youth Parliament to hold a sitting in the House of Commons. It was great to watch the issue being debated on BBC Parliament – let’s hope the sitting gets televised as well.

Images courtesy of eyejammy. Used under licence.

Ted Cantle, writing in the Guardian recently suggests that young people are the solution for creating community cohesion.

The executive chair of the Institute of Community Cohesion makes a valid, if somewhat obvious point, that young people’s enthusiasm for integration is thwarted by the prejudices of older people; and it’s only through nuture that humans develop their negativity towards other people.

But, we can’t simply rely on young people to go out and do this work on our behalf. It’s our responsibility to support them, to promote what they want to achieve and to act in a way that demonstrates tolerance is the best way forward.

Photo credit: drp. Used under licence.