WHEN a 10-year-old called his friend a “gay boy” outside school, he was reported to the head for use of homophobic language and placed on what amounted to a sex offenders’ register which will remain on the record until he leaves secondary school.

Another triumph for the equality and diversity gang. But will it make this youngster grow up a more tolerant and understanding person? I very much doubt it. The child’s mother was told by the school that every racist and homophobic incident had to be recorded on a register, even when it was explained that the offending child didn’t have a clue what “gay” meant. When asked, he said it was something to do with being “silly.”

This nonsense all began eight years ago when teachers, as if they had nothing else to do, were instructed to start keeping a record. Since then tens of thousands of children have been branded racists and homophobes and had their names listed on a national database.

My guess is that most of them don’t understand what they are saying in playground knockabout, yet they have been effectively criminalised. In this case the 10-year- old was placed on the register because the school said it was an Ofsted requirement allowing no room for commonsense or judgement on the part of the head.

He might have been quietly informed by his mother, or the headteacher, that his comment was thoughtless and stupid and that the word “gay” could be taken two ways, depending on the intent in the speaker’s voice.

But that would never do in the eyes of equality-toting ministers like Harriet Harman and Education Secretary Ed Balls. Their concept of equality is to bully naive 10-year-olds and to inculcate their own fanatical attitudes in the young. Putting children on hate registers is more like some totalitarian Eastern European state from the 1960s. It’s a wonder they haven’t instigated official groups of children to go round snitching on their parents and pals.

POLITICS MAGGIE’S WAY

AS politicians suddenly begin discovering parts of their constituencies they never thought they would have to reach, we can anticipate lots of walkabouts by leading party figures in those vital marginals.

But in politics nothing is quite as it seems, as I discovered many years ago when being handed the job of following Margaret Thatcher, then minister of education, on a meet the public visit.

Maggie insisted that I stick close to her for what was supposed to be a spontaneous meeting with members of the public out shopping on a normal Friday morning.

It was when she discreetly turned to me and explained that one of these ordinary members of the public would be stepping out from the throng and asking a question about local schools, the answer to which she very much wanted reporting, that I realised just how contrived the whole thing was.

Sure enough Maggie got her question and gave the carefully prepared answer. She looked at me long and hard and said: “Did you get all that?”

I hardly dare tell her my biro had run out of ink at the vital moment and I was relying on a few scratches on my notebook to record the words of our future Prime Minister, so I just nodded meekly as we ploughed on to the next carefully groomed questioner.

REVENGE IS NOT SWEET

RETRIBUTION and revenge have been all around us this week.

“Just give me half an hour with him ...” said one seething letter writer in a national newspaper, referring to the arrest of Jon Venables, one of the notorious killers of James Bulger.

James’s mother and father are rightly upset that the authorities failed to keep them in the picture when Venables committed alleged breaches of the terms of his parole.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has looked ever more like a myopic rabbit caught in the headlights of an advancing 4x4 on a country road, amid calls for greater Government transparency and delays over a face to face meeting with Denise Fergus.

One can only suspect that this is not so much a matter of protecting the integrity of any future criminal case, more to cover up what went so disastrously wrong with Venables’s parole supervision.

Saying that, was it so wrong to try and turn this dysfunctional product of a dysfunctional background into a decent citizen? At the time of their crime, Venables and Thompson were barely of an age when they could even be taken to court.

There’s nothing more tragic than a life destroyed, in James Bulger’s case, or lives wasted in the case of his attackers. Especially such young lives. Should we just give up, lock them up and throw away the key? Redemption in this instance may have failed. Does that mean we should never try? Simply abandon children like these to their grim and miserable fate shut away from the responsibility of a society which is of our making as well as theirs?

Of course it is very difficult to feel sympathy for Jamie Bulger’s killers, but I don’t believe these kids are born evil. They are victims, too. Victims of a warped unbringing, conditioned by the violence, drugs and alcohol they experience at an age when kids from normal families are growing up with at least the perameters of honesty and decency.

What chance of a life do these children have when they come from such twisted backgrounds? I don’t know if Britain is broken or whether it’s just another glib politician’s sound bite. But if there is such a thing as broken, then this must be it. And shouldn’t we all share a bit of the shame as members of a society which creates and permits such horrific dysfunctionality?

I am not convinced that revealing Venables’s new identity would do any good. There is too much of the lynch mob mentality around at the moment. Venables and his co-offender, Robert Thompson, committed one of the most heinous crimes of modern times. But those who would answer with violence are really no better.

It’s the disturbing mentality of people who hang around outside court buildings to heckle. The mentality of an eye for an eye. The warped justice of the vigilante.

The law must take its proper course if Venables has offended. But not the law of revenge simply to satisfy public blood lust. And maybe, just maybe, amid the furore could we not spare even the merest thought for the tragedy of all the lives ruined by this awful situation? Yes, even for Venables and Thompson.

DON’T GO TO THE DOGS

IT is barking mad isn’t it? This idea that dog owners might have to take out insurance.

I support the need for microchipping. But insurance sounds like another layer of bureaucracy, another opportunity for prying officialdom. How on earth could they possibly enforce it?

Truth is, the vast majority of dog owners are responsible and their pets are no threat to anyone. The problem lies with a minority of status dog people swaggering around our estates. Hardly likely to take out insurance or chip their vicious companions, are they? That will be left to the decent owners.

People know who the wrong ’uns are. Deal with them. Let the rest of the dog world get on with its life without unnecessary intrusion and ridiculous added expense.