Dialling the hotline to our victim culture

By MAIL COMMENT
Updated:



Gordon Brown has come under fire over claims he bullied Downing Street staff

Gordon Brown has come under fire over claims he bullied Downing Street staff

Readers will decide for themselves what this week's allegations of bullying and outbursts of anger have to tell us about Gordon Brown's state of mind.

Some will say they reflect badly on the Prime Minister's self-control and capacity for level-headed judgment.

Others will see them as a mark of his passion and commitment - recalling, perhaps, how Winston Churchill was notorious for flying off the handle with his subordinates in his determination to lead us to victory in the Second World War.

But whichever view you take - and you can be sure that Mr Brown is no Churchill - could there be any more depressing cameo of modern Britain than the story of the National Bullying Hotline?

Leave aside the hypersensitivity of the Number 10 staff who are said to have rung it to complain they were shouted at (though if they can't stand the heat, what are they doing in the furnace of power?).

Isn't this hotline part of a deeply corrosive and seemingly unstoppable victim-culture industry that has grown up on the back of politically correct human rights laws, so beloved by Labour?

Yes, the Mail has a mite of sympathy with Christine Pratt, the serial compensation claimant who founded the hotline. After all, Number 10's ruthless attempts to destroy her credibility are reminiscent of Alastair Campbell at his most vindictive.

But how can it be right that vulnerable people who contact her registered charity are put in touch with a consultancy run by her husband, who charges four-figure fees to help them press compensation claims for bullying?

 
   

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In these desperate economic times, businesses simply cannot afford the often vexatious, ambulance-chasing litigation encouraged by the NBH and the countless other charities and quangos that are the true legacy of 13 years of Labour rule.

Instead of attacking the eccentric Mrs Pratt for exploiting laws he created, Mr Brown should demonstrate his good judgment by repealing them.

Bias at the BBC

Of all the great moral questions of our age, none is more agonisingly difficult than the debate over legalising assisted suicide, with powerful arguments both for and against.

But the supposedly impartial BBC doesn't see it like that.

As far too often, the corporation has thrown its huge, licence-payer-funded weight behind one side of the dispute, giving inordinate publicity to Sir Terry Pratchett, Ray Gosling and the campaign for legalisation.

Indeed, mercy killing has now joined the BBC's growing portfolio of fashionable pet causes, from green taxes to gay adoption, from multiculturalism to the blatant censorship of any discussion of immigration.

LibDem Lord Carlile, of the Care Not Killing Alliance, is right to accuse the corporation of being zealously one-sided on an issue that is far too important for partisan propaganda.

Gymslip hysteria

Defying parody, a £70million-a-year quango warns schools it may be unlawful for them to require girls to wear skirts.

And why? Because ... wait for it ... under Harriet Harman's Equality Bill, compulsory 'gender-specific' uniform may breach the rights of transsexual pupils!

It is still unclear how much time and public money the Equality and Human Rights Commission has lavished on its 68-page report.

All that's certain is that this lunacy proves, yet again, the age of satire is dead.