Tuesday, 7th July, 2004, 16:28 BST

Printable version

E-mail this story

Bye Bye, Mr Punch

Ban Smacks of Nanny State

Since 1860, parents have not been allowed to hit their children with one of these. They still aren't.

The House of Lords last night rejected Government proposals for a ban on the smacking of children, regardless of how recalcitrant they might be. Instead, the Lords backed an amendment that grants parents to right to discipline children with a light smack.

Smacking is allowed, providing it doesn't cause reddening of the skin, bruising, psychological harm, or involve use of an implement.

Liberal Democrat Baroness Walmsley told the Lords that "The whole country seems to think that violence solves things," she said. "It doesn't. The terrible situation in Iraq should teach us that." She was therefore opposing an amendment which allowed parents the right to use cruise missiles and strategic bombing against their children if they were suspected to be harbouring WMD in the sand pit.

Those in favour of an total ban, however, have been outraged by the decision. Clare Timkins, 37, a childless executive from Milton Keynes, is the leader of the anti-smacking campaign "Children Are Unsmackable, Probably!" (CAUP!).

"This failure to ban smacking is going to destroy the civilised world!" Timkins told KTAB News "I was smacked, as a child, for smashing the goldfish bowl with a cobblestone, and even now I've not got over the trauma! If we do not make it illegal for parents to administer a light smack to discipline their children, then those children will grow up to become murderers, drug dealers and terrorists."

CAUP! has shown that all of the World's most hated figures - including Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Abraham Lincoln - were smacked as children, and Timkins is convinced that it was this that caused them to turn into ruthless murderers. Or the 16th President of the United States, as the case may be.

However, those campaigning against the ban, including Marvin Wilcox, a father of four, from Lyndhurst, Surrey. "People do abuse kids," he conceeded, "But surely children would be better protected if the government passed laws that cracked down on actual child abuse and child pornography, not on parents who smack their children to stop them misbehaving. I smack my children, sometimes, but only if they refuse to do as they're told... if you ask me, it's teaching them to respect authority and realise that there are some things in life - such as stealing Daddy's wallet and feeding it to Mr. Monroe's pet ferrets - that aren't acceptable."

What is widely regarded as good news for children, however, is bad news for the smacking implements industry. Roger Bighouse, owner of a smacking implements factory in Dorset, told KTAB that "My several hundred employees will be made redundant if this bill becomes law. We will also have a stockpile of 40,000 canes and several hundred cats o' nine tails. We may have to march on Westminster. Or go to Soho and set up a dodgy shop."