Unfortunately, some extreme libertarians think that even protection and upholding basic living conditions is not the role of government – so I’m glad that you see where I’m coming from!

It seems to me from what you say that this could have been halted ages ago had there been greater communication between counties and boroughs. This does not have to mean more government, just better communication systems and movement of information.
Many of us do not like to feel “followed” by hidden eyes, but certainly the case of children – whose abuse comes from their only point of reference – is different to that of individual adults.

I also wonder at the medical services in all of this (as in the Baby P case, where I read the doctor who failed to diagnose a broken spine -!- is being suspended… most of us would be out in a flash for much much less than that). Certainly there is a huge gap in the service provided for something like this to go unnoticed.

Yes. I want the bad, stupid, inefficient solutions to child abuse to “loose” and be abandoned. Currently such solutions (such as the application of bureaucracy) receive state subsidy and drive out better alternatives such as strong, local communities, charity and direct individual action.

“More importantly, changing from what we have to a completely free market would cause a massive disruption and could let thousands of children fall off the social services map.”

Just as the welfare state took time, effort, intelligence and compassion to put in place so it would to remove it. At the end of a decade or two there would be no state social services departments to even have a map. I would expect there to be a much wealthier, much freer and more responsible set of individuals and families, interwoven in stronger, richer more empowered communities and a much more diverse range of service providing agencies (schools ‘n hospitals) than we have now. Or we can fiddle at the margins with the appalling crap we have now and leave it a bit longer before facing up to the fact that the welfare state doesn’t work.

By definition, social services would no longer exist if the government withdrew its support for vulnerable people. Yes, free markets encourage innovation but markets also have winners and losers – would you really be happy with ‘losers’ when it comes to child abuse? More importantly, changing from what we have to a completely free market would cause a massive disruption and could let thousands of children fall off the social services map.

I am totally opposed to a national database for every child, but isn’t there a good argument for having one just for at-risk children?

There’s been strong opposition from child welfare professionals to Nulabor’s proposed data base for children … Nulabor loathes any opposition and any voice other than it’s own; it’s use of the media for spin and manipulation is without bounds or constraint.

I’m a market-anarchist (a kind of libertarian) and I’m pleased to say I haven’t got a solution. Like all humans I’m not clever enough to be able to make plans for things as complex as human societies. Instead I’ve noticed a way of finding good solutions and good plans then optimising and spreading them. It’s called free markets. It works a bit like evolution in that poor quality and inefficient goods and services experience selection pressures against them.

We are currently engaging in quite serious, expensive and intrusive centralised, planned, state efforts to suppress these kinds of awful human acts and failing. I think we are failing quite miserably in fact. Do you think that by turning up the dial of state planning and action a few notches we’ll will do much better? Has this approach ever worked? That would be a big fat no. Not even for easy things like food production or making good cars.

State provision of “free” services has an effect rather like the so called “dumping” of subsidised foreign goods works, driving out other perhaps better solutions. Some of the better solution driven out are the natural, organic responses and mechanisms of families, friends, neighbours, communities and so on. It’s possible to contemplate a wide range of alternative responses (a Private Defence Agency might rescue the child as good advertising practice, or vigilantes may do the job or the daughters would have easier access to firearms or the NSPCC may have an armed unit or whatever). The essential point is really that there might be very many possible modes of response and that the unsuccessful ones would be selected against over time in a free market. It’s not about specifying the actual machinery that saves the child, but the machinery that gives rise to the child saving machinery.

As it is I can’t even buy a gun to shoot this c—.

I’m not saying that I think a national register is definitely the right move, but don’t those who preach for a smaller (or essentially non-existent) state have to admit that their principles could leave a lot more children open to abuse if evil parents start shuffling around the country?