to think Rotherham council have lost the plot over UKIP foster-carers?

[londonone]

bbc

I really really hope there is more to this than is being reported, otherwise I am utterly speechless.

good point Mumsy but alot of people are discussing it on the quiet because they are not happy about the situation.

To the rude people who accused me of being ill informed, perhaps you could actually read what I posted:

I'm not claiming to be better informed, when I searched I couldn't find out what I consider remotely adequate information to judge what's happened here. But then, most of that information isn't and shouldn't be open to everyone anyway. I'm dismayed that the media pack and all the political party leaderships are in such a hurry to condemn the decisions made on the basis of newspaper reports which had far more spin than information or knowledge. I'm dismayed that this thread is dominated by people who think they know all there is to know about the case - I'd love to know where you're getting that information from because I haven't found it.

By the way, several people have mentioned a case involving sexual exploitation of teenage girls happening in a town beginning with Ro - but it didn't happen in Rotherham, it was in Rochdale! Rotherham is in South Yorkshire. Rochdale is a separate place in a separate county (Lancashire) where I would be very critical of the Council and the police, and others, but I don't think that appalling case was about political correctness - it was about not listening to or respecting teenage girls in a bad situation, and I'm not convinced that some of the people here would have done better at listening to girls who may have already been in trouble with the law, drinking, smoking, using drugs, having sex, and generally not behaving like good little girls, but who clearly needed help and support and someone to listen to them.

Self correction, as I can't edit my previous post - both towns have had child grooming scandals. However, my point about failing to tackle it effectively would be the same.

What has refusing to listen to children or teenage girls have to do with being right on?

Elkie, sadly you've got your facts wrong. Perhaps you should try to find out a little about the subject before accusing other people of being ill-informed. Rotherham and Rochdale have both had appalling cases of sexual abuse and multiple rape of girls by Asian gangs where social workers failed to act.

In both towns there was a spineless and hideous failure of the authorities - police, social services and ever other agency involved in child protection - to act, partly - stated in the minutes of CP meetings 'to avoid inflaming racial tension'. In Rotherham the police went even further and actually arrested victims and their families on charges of racist harassment - the father was outside the house where his daughter was being abused, demanding her back.

Much of the Rotherham info is behind The Times's paywall - it was their investigation, that revealed hundreds of pages of documents spelling out the extraordinary behaviour of Rotherham police and SWs.

Why didn't they listen? I personally think it is because the girls were white working class, and as any right-thinking left-wing middle class person knows, they are all right slappers at the best of times. Others argue it is because the perpetrators were asian and there was a fear of being accused of racism - not tolerating mixed race 'relationships'. Actually, that was probably true as well

Anyway, here is a link to the 10 years of abuse in rotherham that police and social services colluded in. This is the one where the girl calling for help while being abused (13 years old) is arrested for being drunk and disorderly when police arrive. Noone else was arrested

labour-uncut.co.uk/2012/09/27/the-rotherham-grooming-case-shows-the-dangers-of-confusing-criminality-with-culture/

Parents of victims in Rochdale were told their children were 'making a lifestyle choice' by social workers.

Rochdale is also the town where social workers indulged in the worst excesses of panic about so-called Satanic abuse. The SWs invovled committed perjury - their own recordings of interviews with children demonstrated this (and showed clearly how horrendously SS treated these children). Yet the SWs involved were never sacked - they were still working in Rochdale a few years ago. A documentary showed the footage with the support of the now-adult children involved, who feel they have never had a proper apology and no-one has been held to account.

Very thought provoking link mercibuckets. Thank you. (Have now favourited the site)

had a look at your link Mercy - truly awful. I think this lack of debate and heretic type mentality i.e. accusations of racism is not helping our society one bit.

The wrong people seem to be getting a rough deal all too often.

Controlled immigration done properly would take account of the needs of the NHS in the UK and at the same time would take into account the fact that the UK and other countries are importing a huge proportion of some developing countries' health care workers that these countries are left with terrible health care provision for their own nationals left behind.

UKIP, Labour, Conservatives, none of them have ever called for a halt to immigration to the UK, they have all called for or admitted than immigration must be better controlled.

Narration, yes ukip have. It's on their manifesto- a five year ban

Sorry natation- auto correct ate your name!

Going back to older discussion re: ukip and racism...

There are so many examples of racist quotes from ukip members and former leaders, just google.

I found the hope not hate report very interesting, especially where, ukip members said they felt very strongly that immigrants should be deported.

This, is what is relevant to this case. The foster carers are members, not just voters. I think that indicates they feel a very strong connection to the party and it's values, stronger than the vast majority of general voters.

TMC - you can't assume that members of a party are racist (unless it's the BNP I guess, and even then some people may have joined to make a point - especially since they now have to allow members of ethnic minorities in due to equality legislation, rather than subscribing to their views).

SS have not accused this couple of being racist. They have said it is membership of UKIP that makes them unfit. If they are concerned that membership of UKIP may indicate racist beliefs, then they should talk to the couple about their beliefs and judge them on that - not on their membership of a political party.

it say on the UKIP poilicies "5 year ban on permanent settlement" well that is a bit broad or vague, it could be interpreted that therefore people could be admitted on LLE, permanent in UK immigration terms usually means ILE/ILR.

Edam,

I think others have stated several times the dichotomy of a party that want to deport immigrants and halt immigration with two carers who are members looking after three young and vulnerable children on an emergency placement.

edam, I didn't actually accuse you of being ill-informed. You accused me of being ill-informed. I am saying none of us actually know the real facts of the Rotherham foster care case. I have also acknowledged that I made a mistake in one of my posts and that there has been a case of sexual exploitation in Rotherham.

I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else is ill informed, and I'm certainly not claiming to be well informed. Please try and read my posts before you respond pretending I've said something completely different from what I've actually said.

As a white middle class leftie, my view is that the cases discussed here, and the current row over Jimmy Saville, demonstrate that social services and lots of people in positions of power and influence don't take what is said by teenage girls seriously enough. Especially girls who are often already seen as problem kids because of their behaviour and various problems including ones possibly caused by their background.

Natation, I don't find "5 year ban on permanent immigration" in the slightest bit vague, or "end open door immigration", which is also in the manifesto.

Ukip have been very clear on what they mean by both points.

Did these children have to go back into care, instead of being with an experienced foster couple who had agreed to take them in, regardless of their political beliefs? My DH works with children in care, most of whom pray for a foster carer with all their hearts.

Being with a foster carer is being in care.

yes it's vague as you can interpret "permanent" how you like, but if reading it from a UKBA perspective, it would be interpreted as a ban on granting ILE/ILR and a continuation of LLE/LLR which would mean people could still immigrate to the UK but without the expectation of settlement, rather like a guest worker.

I'm not a UKIP member or remotely interested in that end of the political spectrum, but from reading that statement, that is how i would interpret it.

In relation to the actual discussion and the points posted by mysterycat (which I agree with) I think membership of UKIP has been taken to suggest that the carers would be likely to hold negative views of the family background of the foster children, and their birth parents. The social workers appear to have raised their concerns with the foster carers, and possibly had them confirmed rather than allayed.

Foster carers aren't just looking after children completely stripped of context and what has happened before - even adoptive parents may not necessarily do that now. This was an emergency placement, and most children who are newly taken into foster care will continue to have some sort of contact with their birth parents and/or perhaps other extended family, if that is considered to be in their interests.

If you couldn't care for your own children for whatever reason (and I really hope this hasn't or doesn't happen to anyone here), I don't think you'd want them to be cared for by people who would teach them to be prejudiced against you or anyone from your, or their own, background/race/country.

Also, foster carers by definition, and especially those taking on emergency placements and newly in care children, need to be able to work with birth families - sometimes facilitating contact will be a major activity for foster carers. It's not really going to be a good start if the foster carers are campaigning against the rights of the birth parents to be in this country, or expressing prejudice against people generally from that background.

As for children from religious families being placed with atheists, I quite agree. In the unlikely event I became a foster carer, I would be worried about giving an appropriate upbringing to children from a strongly Christian or Muslim upbringing - and a lot of devout Christians in my area (probably most) are from an African or Caribbean background - although I do have Irish Catholicism and Anglicanism in my upbringing, and I had adults who played an important part who had been brought up as Coptic Christian and Welsh Chapel too, and my partner is from a strongly Methodist family, I really don't think we'd be appropriate....

As LineRunner says, foster care is being in care, and there aren't many children's homes left. It's more likely that these children are in another foster care placement - let's hope that their current or future foster carers don't see them as a political football. We don't know the children's names, but I bet lots of people in Rotherham do after the furore that has been whipped up about this by the media and by UKIP and their various supporters.