So they've announced it

Here we are, folks.

"Safeguarding the vulnerable – strengthening the powers of local authorities and others with regards to registration, inspection and intervention will mean effective systems are in place to protect those that most need it. The Bill will introduce a new home educators’ registration system and take new powers for Secretaries of State to intervene in youth offending teams that are failing and potentially putting young people and their communities at risk."

They've announced it. They have. The nerve, the unbelievable cheek of including us under 'safeguarding'. The Queen's Speech. I'm surprised her Majesty's lips didn't fall from her face and land in her lap. I am not a monarchist but you cannot say she wasn't told. You cannot say children did not write to her and tell her. So she is complicit too.

The gloves are off now.

We're away to the races. We're sure to win. Because we care more. Because it's our children. Because it is OUR country and we don't want this vile evil bunch shoving us full of a load of complete pablum that is designed to keep us quiet. IT WON'T.

We don't want you, BALLS. You can't keep anyone safe. Just the opposite.

We don't want you, BADMAN. Creating your own little tax haven and promoting your wickedness.

Do you hear me? I'm not shouting. I am stating. GO. NOW.

GO AWAY NOW.

You have wasted my time for years. Your day is over. Your extinction is here. NOW.

GO.

GO-BALLS. GO!

I used to believe in the system. NO MORE. I used to think they were honourable. NO MORE. I am sick of their slimy ugliness. So GO-BALLS!

See him run in his patterned underwear, eyes popping and bulging, screaming and shouting... See him run.

Run, Balls, run.

We're after you.

You will wish you never heard of home educators. By God, you will.

Bad faith and bad men

I've been pootling around in some law books (as you do). No, honestly, I find them quite soothing, but occasionally challenging and sometimes downright incomprehensible.

One thing struck me as I moodled around and that was the concept of bad faith. Mala fides. I guess you and I know it a bit better by its opposite number which is bona fides or good faith. When I make a contract, I trust in your bona fides. That is, I believe that you are morally sound, that you will agree a sensible exchange of some sort with me and you will stick to your word and carry out your side of the bargain. It can also be your character. Are you trustworthy? Can I put my trust you? Shall I be out of pocket or out of luck if I agree to deal with you?

Mala fides is with or in bad faith, and is also defined as 'dishonestly.'

Normally, I am willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt. I may feel I cannot trust person X but I might suspend my judgement and let them go ahead with whatever bargain we have made. That can lead to trouble. It can also lead to strengthening someone who almost never has had anyone else trust them so it can be a good thing.

It is not a good thing (it is, in fact, mala fides) when my children are concerned and their lives are scrutinised, picked over and dismissed. When the autonomous core of what they are is dissected and thrown out with the other refuse. I never trust anyone I do not know and who shouts a whole load of made-up nonsense, and grimy, sleazy nonsense too, about our lives. I trust no one who does not have an open mind, and cannot take the jump over ignorance into understanding. I cannot prove it, of course, but the course of action taken by Graham Badman and his panel of 'experts' leads me to believe that, if analysis t'were done it was done maliciously or in bad faith.

When you present part of a quotation to support your argument and do not quote the whole shebang, when you dizzy people with twists and turns in your faulty logic, when you dismiss perfectly respectable and responsible research - like Paula Rothermel's - because it disagrees with your chosen points, then you show mala fides.

When your irksome, expensive, ultra vires and against human rights and children's best interests recommendations are accepted by an increasingly unstable government on the same day as your report is released to the public who are directly and absolutely affected by your cogitations, then you demonstrate bad faith.

Anyone who supports a man or group of men who show bad faith are themselves contaminated by the soubriquet also. They are mala fides. Their reputations are irretrievably sullied; their academic understanding is suspect and damaged.

Should you seek to coerce another human being - for whatever reason - you inflict dreadful harm on yourself.

You must always be careful and consider what you do and why you do it. Your reputation is a precious manifestation of your innermost self, and once broken, can take years to recover; it may never be the same. And neither might the recipients of your bad faith.

So, Mr. Badman, I would be looking deep into a mirror, were I you today, and asking myself just who am I? What do I stand for? Am I mala fides?

But you won't, will you?

We have to protect your little ones - from you!

I'd like to ask the government: "Why didn't you just stop me having a baby?

You don't trust the way I educate. You don't trust the way I feed my family. You don't trust me not to hurt my babies. You don't trust me to look after my children. Younglings I cradled in my womb, that I protected from soft cheese and nasty chemicals, that I kept calm for, that I sang to, that my hands washed tiny little clothes for. Children I would gladly give my life for. That I would bleed my veins dry for. For whom I would tear my heart out to make their time on this earth worthwhile to them.

Well, let me tell you, and it may come as a shock, LAs and government, nobody trusts you. Nobody believes your vile calumnies. No one swallows the bile you vomit. NO ONE. Not one.

The putative author of the scurrilous review on Home Education called (fittingly) Badman is a liar. There are no abusing home educators. There are immense home educators who stand by themselves against your outrages, against your perfect educational system that makes children cry and makes them bleed and kills their spirit and sometimes - so sadly - their bodies. The powers that be can produce no proof of home educators' abuses. They can spew out only endless unholy spin and venomous lies, and the great British public is hep to it all. The great British public know. They are aware. They know that the vile creatures in Parliament have an agenda. To be the Pied Piper. To disappear our hearts' darlings, to lure away our babies. They have a sinful agenda. A miserable set of evil men who know nothing of all-giving love and spume hatred in every thought they think and every sentence they utter. They claim we are abusers. We, who would sacrifice every atom of our parent bodies to protect and cherish our children, are accused.

Even if there were abusing home educators, that's not enough to put other home educators in prison, you know.

There was a murderer called Peter Sutcliffe. All men called Sutcliffe haven't gone to goal to rot.

The great British public know you, you vile creatures. They see your tricks. They see through your transparent attempts to shift the blame from social workers who stood by while children were tortured to death, who ignored their screams for help, who turned their backs on children who held out their bloodied hands to have you pull them free. You can shift the blame, but the blame will wing straight back to you like a vulture to circle you again. To pinpoint the blame, to apportion the guilt. The guilt YOU bear.

In the second world war, Britain stood alone against tyranny and oppression. She stood alone against the full fury of a demented Third Reich. She stood alone, undefiled, brave, and never ever defeated. Now, to her infinite shame, Britain IS tyranny itself. Britain stands mired in her filth, bowed down with treachery from within. Truth is readily smeared with lies when lies will blind the thoughtless and bind them to the will of the barbarians in Parliament and their dancing bears like Badman. Blameless, peaceable people whose children have often already suffered from the relentless torture of bullying are now to be bullied in their own homes. Are now to be sought out and questioned like criminals. Like very felons. Those innocents - when can they rest from this? When can they cease striving and crying, and know that they are safe from the heedless evil of an uncaring system? The Pied Piper who knows nothing of love but all of control.

Did you die for this, men in the French churned-up poppy fields during WWII? Did you drown for this you sailors mired in the muck at the bottom of the seven seas? You brave airmen who disintegrated into atoms after the furies struck your planes, did you die for this? Mothers and babies blown up by enemy bombs in their own little homes? Did you die for this savage betrayal of freedom? Did you perish giving birth to this unbearable mockery? This travesty called 'liberty'?

Did you die to salvage freedom for your heirs?

Did you die in vain?

Did you?