Brexit, pursued by Big Nurse, who wants our children

The psychic frailty of schoolchildren is the latest fetish of the UK nanny state.

Ann Farmer | Dec 5 2017 | comment

One thing Britons will not leave behind with Brexit is Big Brother – sometimes appearing in the guise of Big Nurse.

The Sunday Telegraph informs us that, backed by a £300 million fund, the government plans to send around 3,000 health professionals into classrooms “to counsel anxious pupils after a sharp rise in levels of mental distress and self-harm.” Children are waiting several months for psychiatric help, according to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. To remedy this an army of “well-being practitioners” -- mainly psychology graduates -- will be trained to deliver therapy courses in schools.

Schools in turn must appoint “mental health coordinators” to improve links between schools and local NHS (public health) services, and “awareness” among teachers. They must ensure that “pastoral support” is available, and draw up “effective anti-bullying policies,” says Mr Hunt, who claims: “If we can catch mental ill health early we can treat it and stop it turning into something more serious.”

There is no mention in The Telegraph’s report of coordinating this effort with parents. And, since “anti-bullying” is concerned mainly with “trans” and “gay” issues – which affect a tiny proportion of children -- this is looking like yet another well-meaning programme ripe for hi-jacking by the sexual diversity campaign, of which Education Secretary Justine Greening is a fan.

Mr Hunt repeats the mantra of the mental hygiene movement of the early 20th century, which believed that large numbers of people were mentally unfit. It was an offshoot of the eugenics movement that went underground after Nazism discredited eugenics, but its anti-Christian ethos was continued by sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who based his “research” on the testimony of convicted paedophiles. Kinsey, whose approach now dominates sex education, believed that children are basically bisexual, and that repressing their sexuality leads to mental illness.

Ms Greening told The Telegraph the programme aims to “build resilience in children,” but the sexual diversity campaign favours compulsory pornography studies.

Some schools now encourage children to choose their own sexual preference and identity. Already school nurses are allowed to give out the morning-after pill without involving parents, and police ignored parents’ concerns in recent cases of organised child sexual abuse. The Scottish named person scheme deliberately tried to exclude parents from discussions of their children’s welfare.

Kinsey believed that Christianity caused mental illness by repressing children’s libido, but the sidelining of religion in society has coincided with increasing family break-up, childhood anxiety and a rise in paedophile activity; all undermine children’s fundamental need for security.

Christianity has been replaced by the religion of sex, and now psychobabble. We have only just been told that syringing ears is worse than useless; we must hope that this new programme is merely useless and not actively damaging to future generations.

Ann Farmer writes from Essex in the UK.

I don’t know why Darwinists are so prickly about the Great Man’s theory of evolution being questioned. As long as people are arguing about natural selection etc he will never be forgotten, but remain on the lips of schoolchildren and scientists alike, until (shocking thought) eclipsed by some other genius.

In any case debate about Darwin shows no sign of dying out. Today Denyse O’Leary reviews Purpose and Desire, a recent book by New York environmental scientist J. Scott Turner. The book’s long title reveals the plot neatly: What Makes Something "Alive" and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It.

Denyse’s review reminded me of an even more subversive title that came out earlier this year: Charles Darwin, Victorian Mythmaker, by A. N. Wilson, who has written numerous books on prominent Victorians. It has infuriated scientists but, perhaps for that very reason, sounds worth a read.

I wonder what Darwin would have thought of head transplantation? It is something that surgeons in China and Italy are attempting, though it sounds like unnatural selection to me. Q: what’s the difference between God and a surgeon? See Michael Cook’ s article for an answer.