To think that if you can't remember to take your 8 year old home from the pub then you can't be trusted to run the country?

[PrettyPrinceofParties]

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/11/david-cameron-daughter-behind-pub?newsfeed=true

Most 8yos would be mortified if their parents insisted on accompanying them to the loos in familiar surroundings. No need to ask them, really.

but most 8yos arent related to the prime minister jenai? this is the point here, not about what regular families are doing

Hilarious, I know this pub well, it is tiny so how you could mislay a child i don;t know!

ss involved? Seriously? If they got involved with every family who made a small error every family would need a social worker!

Would she be the responsibility of the "protection"?

Also, if she doesn´t usually travel with her Dad, I wonder why it would be assumed that she had?

Why didn´t anyone notice that she had gone to the toilet?

I suppose she´s not an "announcer" like mine!

So they shouldn't be able to do normal things belle?

still reckon it could have been a set up gone wrong

Northern lurker - quite a long countdown there - let me make it shorter for you: Madeleine McCann.

In the interests of research I have just asked my dd2. She is in Year 6, aged 11. I asked her had she ever minded going to the loo by herself - 'no' she replied. I asked her what she would think if I did come with her. 'That you're weird' she replied.

She is unquestionably right on the second point. I am a liberal mother and I take that as a compliment not a term of abuse btw. So that's what I would expect her to say.

Thanks rainydays

mmm sirzy, prime ministers dd going to loo alone

it's a no brainer for me, I think I've explained myself sufficiently this morning to not have to repeat myself just for you Sirzy

not going to go on about it, off out for lunch now

Hope you have the super glue ready to keep children attached to your side at all times!

Sirzy- i just don't see how you can 'forget' a child ??
And if this was a normal parent ss would in deed become involved.
Leaving a child alone by mistake, ive never done it

Yes, Northern, but at the ages you mention. if anything went wrong' you would bear the responsibility and not the child.

Read this thread for many examples of how it can happen. Mistakes happen dispite claims of some on this thread no parent is perfect

term of abuse?

northern?

so sensitive for one so eloquent

hardly ideal to interpret 'liberal' parenting as 'a term of abuse'

over reacting? much?

am off - would recommend food, I sense some awful mood swings coming thick and fast here

" No child left behind "

---> child poverty

Im not saying every parent is 'perfect' but leaving your kid behind, bit stupid don't you think?

It appears there are no cut and dried answers on this just differing opinions.
But a serving Prime Ministers child is in a different position to the rest of us

This thread has gone all weird.
Social services?
8 year olds being accompanied to the toilet?
Perfect parents who would never do such a thing?

No DC fan here and I wouldn't say it's an 'easy' mistake to make. An easy mistake to make would be leaving your keys in the front door or forgetting to turn the lights off.

But it happened and don't really see the need for the big uproar I mean what do people want social services to pay him a visit? For him to be sacked? And I disagree that social services would be coming down hard on an ordinary family over this.

Can we please repeat once and for all: SS do not get involved every time a child is lost in a shopping centre/left behind in a restaurant/parents fail to pick up from after school club as a one off. SS are very stretched and struggle to keep up with all the cases of children who are genuinely neglected over a long period.

I consider myself a fairly ordinary parent: not rich, not powerful, no connections. I once lost ds for 10 minutes in Portsmouth. Pushing a wheelchair up the hill on a narrow stretch of pavement and failing to realise he was no longer behind us. We went back and found him, nobody reported us to anyone. SS never got to hear about it- no doubt because I am not the PM. That is the reality of ordinary families and SS.

i just don't see how you can 'forget' a child ??
And if this was a normal parent ss would in deed become involved.

No, they wouldn't!

I'm wondering when David Cameron's mum will notice she's left him behind in Downing Street and when she'll be back to collect him.

What world is it where social services get involved because an 8 year old child is left behind for 15 mins? I am stunned that people actually think that would happen. Social services are over-stretched as it is with genuine cases of abuse, neglect & kids with no parents at all. Purlease!!!!!