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The sentencing today of those responsible for the death of Baby P brings the case to some sort of closure — but the serious worries remain. The sentences are surprisingly lenient.
Both Baby Peter's mother and her lodger will go to prison for an indefinite sentence although they can be considered for parole in August 2012; her boyfriend, convicted of raping a two year-old girl as well, was sentenced to life but can be considered for parole in just over eight years.
We must hope that when the time comes, the Parole Board takes an appropriately sceptical view of these perverted killers' demands for freedom: revealed in court as manipulative liars, they seem likely to remain a danger to the public for years to come.
As for the lessons of the case, the latest serious case review, released today, highlights anew the chronic problems in child protection.
Council lawyers concede in the report that there was clear enough evidence of abuse to take Baby Peter into care before he died — yet Haringey social workers failed to do so.
As we reveal today, the failures go back a long way.
Eileen Fairweather, who led the Standard's investigation into the Islington child abuse scandal in the Nineties, says that both Baby Peter's mother and another close relative were in Islington council's care in the early Nineties at a time when abuse by organised paedophiles was rife.
There have been resignations and recommendations for reform following the Baby P case.
But as yet more of the catalogue of errors that led to his death becomes clear, it is hard not to conclude that, in Haringey at least, this child protection system is still fundamentally unfit for purpose.
Odds against early poll
The unhappy state of the Labour Party is laid bare in our interview today with 23-year-old Georgia Gould, defeated last weekend for the Labour candidacy in Erith and Thamesmead.
Ms Gould, daughter of Labour grandee Lord Gould, says she was “the victim of a well-orchestrated and vicious smear campaign” that reflects the anger of local activists towards the Government. She also reports voters' fury over MPs' expenses; today there are more revelations.
Some commentators are now calling for an autumn general election to cleanse our political system, and as we report today, that option is being discussed by some ministers too.
That would suit the Conservatives, despite their many embarrassments in the expenses row. And for this reason, an early election remains unlikely: the turmoil in Westminster is hitting Labour hardest.
Numerous ministers have suffered toe-curling revelations. Ms Blears and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith are likely to be casualties of a likely early summer Cabinet reshuffle.
With the Government trailing by almost 20 points in the polls, there are widespread predictions of disaster at next month's local and European elections.
Why would the Prime Minister risk an election so soon after this torrid time? Toughing it out until next spring is still Mr Brown's best hope of survival.
For whatever Parliament's crisis, an economic upturn should still help Mr Brown.
And while the economy remains very weak, there are enough signs of green shoots to give some credence to Chancellor Alistair Darling's predictions of a “V-shaped” recession, which assumes a relatively rapid recovery beginning late this year.
Many people will feel, with some justification, that this government has lost its moral authority as well as its direction and that it should therefore go to the country early; Mr Brown's political calculation will surely be to hang on.
Bank holiday playtime
Tate Modern's recreation this weekend of its 1971 exhibit, Bodyspacemotionthings, will be greeted with glee by adults and children alike.
The exhibition by Robert Morris, in its day the first such interactive show, created near-hysteria among many visitors with its tunnels, walkways, slides and rope swings.
The appetite for such adult play is still there, to judge by the response to Tate Modern's huge slides exhibited in 2007.
Being a child again: what could be more fun for a bank holiday weekend?
Reader views (1)
The issue is no longer MP's expenses, it is about the way the the UK is governed. Gordon Brown recently used the word 'chaos' and may have inadvertently revealed more than he intended.
"Chaos Theory" involves 'dynamical' systems, i.e. those that evolve over time. The "Butterfly Effect" refers to the way in which a small incident can generate massive long-term change in a system.
The deep and widespread anger generated initially by the expenses scandal has spread to reflect disquiet with the whole political system, not merely the MP's who misjudged their expense claims so badly.
This anger is not going to disappear with a new system of expense claims, that is too little, and far too late. Any general election is going to raise the issue of party funding, especially as the Labour Party is STG6 million in debt and cannot afford to mount an election campaign on a national level. As many of the unpaid activists that he Labour Party rely on for their election staff are so disgusted they may boycott the next election, Labour are in trouble. The "cash for honours" scandal is still not forgotten!
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK
