Social services and letting children adventure

Sir, Kirstie Allsopp’s distress about the intervention after her son’s holiday (“Allsopp outraged at social worker texts over son’s trip”, Aug 26) highlights a broader issue. Sadly, her experience is far from unique. Hundreds of thousands of parents face similar scrutiny each year, often on tenuous grounds. Research by Andy Bilson, emeritus professor at the University of Central Lancashire, has indicated that one in five children will be referred to social services, and one in 19 before the age of five. These referrals frequently result in no further action, but they leave a lasting mark in official records.
Although children’s welfare must always be paramount, this situation is unsustainable and counterproductive. Social workers are overwhelmed but compelled to investigate almost all referrals. This strains the system and creates the risk that genuine cases of abuse or neglect will be overlooked. More funding, certainly, is needed, but so is a transformation in culture and in the relationship with families to ensure that protecting children is both effective and just.Dr David WilkinsReader in social work Cardiff University
Sir, Social workers, who do sterling work, also have a list of horrific failures to their credit, cases in which they ignored repeated signs of danger. A 15-year-old boy travelling in Europe with an older child is not at significant risk. He survived, which is more than can be said for some of those social services have failed. A little humility would not go amiss.Louise MolloFaringdon, Oxon
Sir, Further to your correspondence about children travelling alone (“Life without adventure is betraying children,” Jenni Russell, Aug 24, and letters, Aug 26), I was approaching my sixth birthday when I was evacuated to Tintagel in September 1940 from my home in Surrey, which was inconveniently close to the Kenley and Biggin Hill fighter aerodromes during the Battle of Britain.
It was too dangerous for me to go home for the school holidays that followed, Christmas 1940 and the spring and summer of 1941. I had to be taken to Devizes, where my family originated, which involved being put on the train at Camelford (closed in 1966), then connecting with the London train at Exeter, from which I changed at Patney for the Devizes line (also closed in 1966), where my great-aunt met me at Pans Lane Halt, next stop beyond the town station. I could not have accomplished this on my own, not least because all the station names were blanked out. In those days, the guards on the trains had some extra responsibilities.Julian WiltshireWarminster
Sir, If Kirstie Allsopp made a mistake, it was in sharing her son’s adventure on social media. The people who “know better” or simply want to pull the famous down a peg or two soon got to work. What happened to minding one’s own business?The Rev Dr Paul SheppyAbingdon, Oxon
Sir, My daughter, my only child, wasn’t allowed to play computer games or have a television in her room but during her A-levels she flew alone to Germany and Amsterdam, to the general horror of family and friends. You won’t hear me boasting about her resilience, sense of adventure and independence, though, because she is now a permanent resident of Australia. Maybe the computer games and TV wouldn’t have been so bad. Juliet TeseHertford
Sir, You note (On this day, Aug 26) that in 1346 the Black Prince led victorious English troops at Crécy. Kirstie Allsopp might like to know that he was 16 at the time.David BrearleyRawdon, W Yorks
Sir, The Conservatives have had eight leaders since John Major. David Cameron, who benefited from the poor performance of Gordon Brown’s administration, was very much an outlier in terms of time in the post and was undone by his misjudgment of the Brexit referendum.
Sadly, it has become routine to vote against incompetence rather than for excellence. Your ranking of the present candidates (Aug 24) is informative, but recent history tells us that the winner this year is unlikely still to be in post at the next election. Thus, these candidates condemn themselves.
Given the weak start made by Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister, elected with only a third of the votes cast, there is a better than evens chance that the Tories can win the next election. The leadership candidates are all familiar people who have been seen and found wanting. The Conservatives would do better to search among their ranks for somebody who can inspire more than a small section of their own party.David DiproseThame, Oxon
Sir, Labour is well advised to “strip members” of the vote in its leadership contests (Aug 26), and the Conservatives should do the same. Party memberships are wholly unrepresentative slivers of the electorate and tend to elect leaders ideologically more extreme than their MPs, thus causing the sorts of damaging conflict suffered by Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and the Tories under Liz Truss. Members could have a role, maybe — Labour’s electoral college might re-emerge, for example — but the final say is best removed.Bill Jones Honorary professor of political studies, University Liverpool Hope
Sir, Stephen Millard’s article touches on the important issue of the time horizon of public investment (“Now is the time for the OBR to look beyond the government’s fiscal rules”, Aug 26). The District Line opened in 1868, the Victoria Line 100 years later and the Elizabeth Line only very recently. We need a quite different way of valuing our infrastructure, its maintenance and improvement that is not constrained by five-year planning.James JewellLoxwood, W Sussex
Sir, Sir Martin Sorrell is right to stress that for those with “ambitions to operate globally, the first lesson is that you have to pick your geographies carefully” (“US-China divide comes down to an issue of perception,” Aug 26). Rightly, he highlighted the importance of population forecasts in making these judgments.
Unusually for Sir Martin, though, he missed the biggest opportunity of all. In the next 25 years — a single generation — the population of African countries is projected to grow by 1.2 billion, or almost the same as India’s population today. By the end of the century, African nations will have more people than all of Asia, including India and China.
That this will pose immense challenges with regard to food production, urban development, governance and much else is not in dispute. Alongside the challenges of climate change and the need for decarbonisation, sustainable development will pose arguably the greatest test for humanity.
These challenges must not be underestimated, but the accompanying business opportunities are unparallelled. For Europe especially, with fast-growing African countries close to our shores, there will be real effects. This is constantly under-reported — perhaps “an issue of perception”, in Sir Martin’s words.Andrew FraserLondon SW19
Sir, James Vitali (“Eight ways to fix the housing crisis”, Aug 23), misses a vital element that could transform matters at once. The reuse and adaptation of old buildings attracts hefty VAT charges, which loads matters in favour of new development. Abolition of this pernicious tax would not only release vast numbers of old buildings for sensitive conversion, but would hugely assist in “greening” policies.Professor James Stevens Curl Holywood, Co Down
Sir, The fire in Dagenham (News, Aug 26) was not unexpected. Since Grenfell in 2017 there has been interminable handwringing and avoidance of accountability by those responsible for the poor standards of building and safety. More than seven years later, there are still many tower blocks that have been declared unsafe waiting to be remediated. Every day that these faults go unresolved people’s lives are in danger. It’s time the government got tough with those responsible and forced the pace. These people cannot wait for the Grenfell inquiry to report.Jon JenningsBirmingham
Sir, You report on a shortened version of Puccini’s La Bohème to attract a younger audience (“LaBo? Opera for TikTok generation”, Aug 26), but it is not only they who sometimes find the going hard. In his seventies, Richard Strauss was invited to conduct his hit of 1910, Der Rosenkavalier. At the end he put down his baton, mopped his brow and said, “Eine verdammt lange oper” — a damn long opera. But who would want to abridge it?RHW CooperGrasmere, Cumbria
Sir, Sir Thomas Beecham once asked George V if he had a favourite opera. La Bohème was the choice. Asked what about it appealed, the King said: “It is the shortest.”John Godfrey Kew Green, Richmond
Sir, Perhaps the most damning comment on Charles Dickens’s appalling treatment of his wife comes from Catherine herself (“Letters show Dickens lied about having a bleak spouse”, Aug 26). According to Michael Slater’s biography Dickens and Women (1983), on her deathbed she asked that the letters he had sent her when they were young be given to the British Museum, so that “the world may know he loved me once”. Pathos worthy of the man himself. Emily FergusLondon SW10
Sir, Helen Rumbelow (Notebook, Aug 26) suggests an Olympics for oldies but many high-level athletic events already exist for masters athletes, to use the preferred term. Internationally and in the UK, athletes from 35 to over 100 regularly compete to a high standard. At 56, I watch with awe as my team-mates bust ageing stereotypes.Sarah NachshenLondon NW11
Sir, Rather than a separate Olympics for the elderly, perhaps there could be age categories. The existing divisions seem arbitrary anyway: I have never understood why there are weight categories for boxers but not height categories for high jumpers.Graeme D WatsonEdinburgh
Sir, I entirely approve of office workers wandering around in socks (Helen Rumbelow, Notebook, Aug 26). Twenty years ago, to the disapproval of senior colleagues, I pioneered coming into chambers in jeans and a T-Shirt rather than a suit and tie. I perhaps took it too far when I also discarded my shoes. One day after court, my head of chambers came into my room to find me sitting with my unshod feet up on the desk. With a pained look he asked me: “Were your opponent’s submissions so good that they blew your socks off?”Guy Morpuss KCFarnham, Surrey
Sir, Michel Guérard (obituary, Aug 24) was a pioneer of cuisine minceur. As one critic noted: “If you want to find the meat, look under the pea.”David LeiblingPinner