Nursery World - To the point... (42)

Our weekly columnist Beatrix Campbell thinks that the smacking debate exposes a very peculiar approach to private life So, adults have the right to hurt and humiliate children. That's the law.

So, adults have the right to hurt and humiliate children. That's the law.

The most religious prime minister in living memory has, in last week's vote on an amendment to the Children Bill, squandered the opportunity to promote a more peaceful society by sanctioning violence against children.

Any pretension to moral fibre in this most pious of prime ministers is thoroughly exposed by his craven gestures to the hangers and hitters among us.

Typically, he has repudiated the remarkable consensus of 350 organisations working with children who have been campaigning for an outright ban on physical punishment.

When he reserved the right of childminders to hit children in 2001 he was reproached by the National Childminding Association and childminders'

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