Right-wing bile on the Baby P case

More nanny state, less nanny state. From castration to welfare layabouts, how the depressing tragedy that took place behind close doors is fuelling the tabloids' rage and anti-working class bias

In Haringey, North London, a 2-year-old child died after being tortured by his scummy parents. The resulting blaze of finger-pointing is reminiscent of an incoherent pub talk amongst pissed-up geezers. "This beer's fookin shite, ennit?", says one. And the other slurs "Yeah mate, 'know what you mean, it's ace, love it".

Look at this. David Cameron, the man who suckled his political milk from the tits of there-is-no-such-thing-as-society, now is making the government accountable for anything dysfunctional that may go on in our society, even if it's behind closed doors. The high ranks of the anti-"nanny state" brigade are asking angrily where nanny was. At a guess, the implication is, if the Tories were in power, no family violence, no barbaric cruelty, would take place.

But Richard Littlejohn, in his Daily Mail bilefeast, decides instead that nanny is too overbearing. There are too many social workers, "legions" in fact. Not to mention "welfare layabouts". And of course the next step is that, with all those benefits, some scumbag may feel encouraged to kill their 2-year-old kid. Logical, isn't it?

Suspended radio presenter Jon Gaunt, from the Sun, slams the "elected and unelected metropolitan elite [who] impose their warped views and social engineering on our country". Perhaps he was referring to his colleague Patrick O'Flynn from the Daily Express, who calls for the state to "take action now" and "curtail the rights of everyone to have children", while pointing the finger at the "skewed benefits system in this country [that] provides massive incentives for the most dysfunctional people to have loads of children they cannot care for". Likewise, Kelvin Mackenzie in the Sun is indignant at the authorities who allowed the child's mother, "this disgusting piece of humanity [...] to have the child in the first place".

Needless to say, nobody explains how such vetting would work exactly. Do these people think at all before spitting rage and writing such shite? Still, they all pontificate, they all know better, they all have a solution - they love playing their who-shouts-it-louder little game. Even if it's in total contradiction with one another, or even with themselves - within the same piece. As long as they rant against liberals, 'PC' councils and the "benefits system".

In the excellent words of Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, suddenly "we want nannies galore. We want nannies with whips, nannies with locks, keys and public inquiries". Like he puts it, "the response to the case of 17-month-old Baby P has been a classic of incoherent social comment".