Nicola Barry
Spare a sympathetic thought for this ‘Cinderella service’
YESTERDAY was World Social Work Day – a celebration of the people who should be our most prized asset, but they lag behind other professions when it comes to respect. So often, social workers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Either they blunder in over-zealously and remove children for no apparent reason or they fail to act soon enough and a child is battered to death.
Published: 17/03/2010
Only Jamie Bulger’s parents have the right to bay for blood
ALL we know is that Jon Venables was returned to prison last week. It is nine years since he was released on licence with a new identity after serving eight years for the murder of Jamie Bulger on Merseyside in 1993.
Published: 10/03/2010
Craze for finding posh names for mongrels leaves me cold
ON SATURDAY mornings, I always walk through a nearby dell for a couple of hours with my beloved Westie, Coll. Invariably, depending on the weather, we meet a lot of other people walking their pooches. Most dog owners talk to each other, usually about their loved ones, I mean the four-legged variety.
Published: 03/03/2010
We should stop throwing pots of money at useless research
UNIVERSITY research is a waste of time and money. Discuss. John Haldane, professor of philosophy at St Andrews University, has dared to suggest that the growth of research at Scotland's seats of learning might have become “a drag" on the main pursuit of educating students.
Published: 24/02/2010
