Every child death is a tragedy. And when a child dies violently, public outrage rightly follows: how can we have failed to protect the most vulnerable?
But new findings from researchers at the university of Bournemouth, showing that the number of violent deaths among children in England and Wales has fallen by almost 40 per cent since 1974, is something to welcome, even as we strive to learn from the cases that go horribly wrong. Today, the death rate is the fourth lowest in the western world, the result, the researchers say, of improvements in social care systems and a greater focus on child poverty.
That scarcely chimes with Tory rhetoric on “Broken Britain”, their constant refrain that things are going from bad to worse. What it does show is that professionalism, proactive policy, and the broader attention to socio-economic injustice pursued by Labour, have had a positive effect.
Most striking of all, when a child’s at risk in our poorer communities, it’s the local people who rally round. Witness the case of Shannon Matthews: a whole community turned out to search when she went missing – hardly the sign of a broken society. Talk of “Broken Britain” is not just inaccurate, it does a deep injustice to the millions of decent families across all sections of society who care about their communities and for the safety of every child.