Saturday 7 February 2009

The One That Is Having Difficulty Believing It. . .

It really does beggar belief, Sharon Shoesmith, the erstwhile head of childrens' services at Haringey Borough Council has been crying on Al-Beeb Radio 4 about the treatment that's been handed to her and how the death of 'Baby P' wasn't her fault.

Just as with Rose Gibb, about whom I have blogged in the past, there seems to be this idea amongst those in post that just because you are paid a very generous salary, with good holiday, excellent pension and uncommon security to be in charge of something, when it all goes wrong there is no way you can be called to account.

Perhaps in an alternate universe, Sharon Shoesmith is being feted as a wonder having run a department that is the best in the world and acting as an example of how a department should be run. Perhaps in that alternate universe, Sharon Shoesmith is on R4 saying how it is nothing to do with her. I doubt it somehow.

When will these people learn? You take the big chair, you take the plaudits when it goes right, you take the brickbats when it goes wrong.

She was also quoted as saying that she said how sorry and distressed she was at the time of the incident but that MSM didn't report it.

Look, Sharon, this isn't Carol Thatcher daring to utter the word 'Golliwog', this isn't Clarkson stating the bleeding obvious about Gorgon Brown, this isn't about people falling into a swoon of faux 'offence'. It is said how what Thatcher did could not be tolerated, how Clarkson's comments were inexcusable.

Well, on your watch a young child died in horrible circumstances. A child you had been warned about time and time again. This cannot be tolerated, this is inexcusable. Saying sorry don't cut it.

One final point, isn't it funny how in both Shoesmith's and Gibb's cases, the official reports pointing out how toe curlingly piss poor their respective departments are, are dismissed as being mailicious and disproportionate and so forth? The paranoia of hubris.

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