January 30, 2009

Many people from the generation before mine were brought up by grandparents, uncles, aunts and the ubiquitous "family friends" because one or both of their parents had died in the war.

Many of those same extended family members had never-ending colds, aching backs, dodgy knees, asbestos-lungs, missing limbs, bad teeth, awful diets, smokers' coughs and a fondness for a drop of whiskey in their tea.

They lived in drafty homes with no central heating, outside toilets, single-paned windows, vermin in their yards and chilblains on their feet.

It rarely did the children they were bringing up any harm.

(Although it did teach those children that in later life it might be an idea to stop smoking, buy double glazing, and turn the sodding heating up. A form of education, if you like.)

But people, in the main, aren't stupid. And with age, largely, comes maturity and wisdom.

The grandparents in Edinburgh who are having their grandchildren removed from their care - and without the kids' own (heroin addicted) mother's agreement - because they're too old, or too ill, are being treated disgracefully.

The tinpot town hall idiots that genuinely think they know how to make things work - when of course the only thing they really know is how to cling on to a cast iron pension without ever having a proper job - are shown up once again to be living on a planet far removed from the real world.

I've little doubt that a lot of people in the shires will be carried along by the Daily Mail headline hysteria about the fact it is two gay men who are to take care of the children instead.

But that entirely misses the point.

And if you actually read the Mail's coverage, while they of course reach out to their "Middle English" readers' baser instincts (it's what all papers do - it's called keeping circulation and therefore your business, whatever the ethics), the main thrust of its attack - which I happen to think is fair enough - is more about the ludicrousness of a half-wit social worker slicing up a family, than it is about the sexuality of the unfortunate couple who have merely put themselves forward as potential carers of children in need.

Yes, the Mail is a right wing nutcase at (very many) times.

But then sometimes someone has to be.

I don't suggest for a minute that we should switch the clock back 50 years and all gather round the radio so we can Listen With Mother, cloaked in a sepia world and delighting at the sight of butter.

But the grandfather here is only 59, admittedly with angina. His wife is 46. She has diabetes.

That does not make them too old or too ill to take care of their grandchildren in any way at all.

The sexuality of the willing adoptive parents is, sadly, the leverage the Mail has used to highlight what is in fact just an example of useless social working.

I feel sorry for the hapless gay couple in this. They are entirely blameless. Their background, other than any illegalities of which there is no question, is of no consequence.

The point is, these kids should be staying with their grandparents.

It's what the kids want, it's what their mother wants, and it's what the grandparents themselves want.

Because theirs are the important voices - the voices that need to be listened to.

We're not looking at a Baby P situation here, where social workers failed to step in.

We're looking at the exact opposite: Social worker interference at its most misguided and grotesque.

Should this decision be upheld, in a nutshell, that family will never recover from it.