The Today magazine programme (for it is surely no longer worthy of being part of the world respected News team) on the BBC has plumbed even more banal depths this morning.
A baby, Baby P, died 15 months ago whilst the baby boy and his home life were under the inspection of a local Social Services Department. The Today magazine programme, instead of dealing with the important issues surrounding this case - whether social care can ever take responsibility for the well-being of every person in the country - kept coming back to the same question "Who was responsible for the child's death?"
In a pointless interview with the head of the body which regulates individual social workers, about correspondence which he hadn't seen, from someone he didn't know, to people unidentified, the interviewer returned time and again to question of responsibility. The clear agenda was that someone, preferably a Government Department, or - even better - a government minister - should be responsible for the death of the child.
Clearly the Today magazine hadn't been watching the BBC's news broadcasts over the past few days of they would know that the boys mother, father and their lodger were found not only responsible but guilty in a court of law, convicted of "causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person". They will be sentenced soon.
Of course, the inquiries that the government have established will identify whether there were any errors of systems or by individuals in the particular case. The BBC would do well to wait for those inquiries to report before rushing to comment.
In the meantime, perhaps a better question for them to peruse would be, "How many children are still alive thanks to the intervention of social services?"
