We Already Know What Would 'Better Protect Children'...

..and it's responsible parenting.

A mother suing TikTok over her teenage son's death said a decision to hold a landmark new inquest would help better protect children.

Oh? 

Jools Sweeney, a 14-year-old from Gloucestershire, died in April 2022 and his parents believe social media played a role in his death – pointing to an 'online challenge gone wrong'. There are fears he may have been a victim of attempted 'sextortion', too.

The first inquest wasn't so very wrong, but it clearly didn't exonerate the negligent parents enough: 

The fresh ruling overturned an inquiry held four years ago, which only lasted 23 minutes and heard no oral evidence. Jools's mother, Ellen Roome, challenged the narrative conclusion recorded in 2022, taking legal action against the senior coroner for Gloucestershire.

Her lawyers told a hearing on Thursday that a 'number of lines of inquiry' had not been pursued. And, in the High Court in London, Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Heather Williams on Thursday quashed the original conclusion and ordered the inquest be reopened.

And so we're off to the races, and the only people to benefit from this are the lawyers. Oh, and the government, which relishes any excuse to crack down on social media, of course. 

Ms Roome said: 'Every bereaved family deserves to know that every possible avenue, including a child's digital life, has been properly investigated. We hope this is a turning point, not only in finding the truth about Jools, but in making the online world safer for every child. 

'Our greatest hope is that one day no family has to walk this path. No parent should ever have to bury their child because dangerous content was allowed to reach them.'

Who allowed it to reach him, then, if not you? A 14 year old doesn't buy a phone without help from his parents, and most social media has age-restrictions and warning for use, which you as a parent should have known.  

Thursday's ruling came as Ofcom announced an investigation into the social media platform over potential failures in stopping children accessing harmful content. The watchdog has questioned whether the social media giant's age checks are fit for purpose.

Not if it's ignored by the very people now clamouring for Big Daddy Governmement to step in and parent their children for them, no. 

A TikTok spokesman said: 'We are confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this.'

I'm confident they will too, and I'm also conifent it won't make a blind bit of difference. 

It’s Simple Dependency, Sonia, And We Can’t Afford It Anymore…

And apart from that, given what some MPs consider to be moral behaviour, I'll take no instruction from the likes of them....

Since the pandemic, the number of working-age people out of work as a result of long-term illness has swelled by more than 750,000. There are also more people claiming health-related benefits – both means-tested out-of-work benefits, and the personal independence payment (Pip) that helps meet the additional costs of disability, which isn’t means-tested and is paid regardless of someone’s work status. One in 10 working-age adults now receive health-related benefits, up from one in 14 before the pandemic.

How on earth did we ever get to this? Well, in part, it stems from the Tories eagerness to fudge the umemployment figures: 

No other wealthy country has experienced a trend as marked as this, suggesting it’s not purely about Covid or the cost of living (though it’s worth noting the UK is only now spending roughly the average for comparable countries on disability benefits). It’s more likely to be a product of how these have interacted with the UK’s public services and welfare system.

The low rates of out-of-work benefits for those who lose their jobs – eroded since 2010 – have probably pushed more people towards applying for disability benefits than in other countries.

And now someone's attempting to do something about this state of affairs, there's outrage.  

Starmer aides have been busy briefing that cutting these benefits will resonate with swing voters. That seems unlikely to placate the Labour MPs – including frontbenchers and the normally loyal – who are angry about this not because they think it’s a vote loser, but because they think it’s immoral. Benefits have been pared to the bone since 2010 by successive Conservative chancellors – the poorest decile of families with children lost an astounding £6,000 a year on average between 2010 and 2024 as a result of changes to the tax-benefit system.

They didn't 'lose it', though, they simply should never have had it. We shouldn't be paying people to be idle.