Smack your kids up

MP David Lammy has blamed anti-smacking laws for the lack of discipline that led to riots in London last summer.

Mr Lammy is the MP for the North London constituency of Tottenham, where the riots originated and some of the worst violence was experienced. He became a regular on our screens for his vocal and often radical views of the riots. The Labour MP attacked the 2004 Children’s Act as being a middle-class “liberal elite” law that stigmatises the working class and leaves them too scared to discipline their children.

The current legislation allows for the smacking of children as long as it does not cause “reddening of the skin”. Other methods of discipline which cause physical or serious mental harm are also banned. The concern is not so much that the law itself is wrong in its intentions and the limitations it sets, but in its subjective interpretation.

Mr Lammy has argued that the law has too much of a grey area, leaving parents fearing that their children could be taken away by social workers if they hit them at all. He also made it clear that there is a class divide where parents in deprived areas are constantly being visited by social workers regardless of whether there is reason, leading to constant fear. Middle-classes, on the other hand, are rarely targeted by social workers and can train discipline into their children with “private education and extra-curricular activities.”

Despite these claims of a class difference, the law was actually brought in by Lammy’s own traditionally working class Labour party, but he has quickly gained the support of traditionally middle class Conservative politicians, including Education Secretary Michael Gove and Mayor of London Boris Johnson who find the law “confusing”.

An overhaul of the law could well have widespread public support. A poll by the Guardian, generally thought to have a readership that epitomises the “liberal elite”, showed that last October two-thirds of its readers opposed a smacking ban. At the time of writing, 90% of Telegraph readers, thought to epitomise middle class conservative attitudes, support the right to smack.

It now appears likely that a serious review will take place of the law and it is likely to be changed due to this vocal backbench MP.