Taking responsibility

Great post by Pub Philosopher:

"But there is another similarity between both these tragic stories. Khyra's and Victoria's fathers were not living with their daughters and were out of the UK when they died, yet they displayed their grief for all to see and launched tirades of criticism at the British state for its failure to look after their children.

[...]

Much of this disproportionate response resulted from a mind-set which assumed that the state must take all the blame for Victoria Climbie's death. Anyone who suggested that, perhaps, her father should bear even a little of the responsibility for entrusting his daughter to inappropriate carers was drowned out in the chorus of "something must be done".

[...]

I'm not saying Birmingham's social workers are blame free. They should have asked questions when the child had been away from school for so long. If they were unaware of this, then that is a system failure too.

But Mr Zaire has some cheek to blame just about everyone else when, it appears, he had very little involvement with his children. "