MembersNEWNew in the Members’ Room: Suzy Dean writes on The government's misogynistic attitude towards women and booze. Dolan Cummings debates Islamists on free speech. Manick Govinda draws attention to UK Home Office curbs on non-EU artists, and suggests a campaign to defend artists' freedom to work across borders. Mark Harrop is organising VIP Nights in pubs across the north of England to protest against the smoking ban. Michele Ledda's petition against banning of a poem from the school curriculum has been widely covered, and he has also argued on radio against the removal of Gary Glitter from the music curriculum. James Panton gives a talk defending freedom in Edinburgh, and Frank Furedi will give a lecture in London on The Political Significance of the Economic Crisis. New on the Vetting Blog: Tenants turfed out for refusing to fill in forms; CRB checking tooth fairy; Children’s authors under suspicion; Flats halted because balconies have ‘view of school’. Read on… |
Children’s authors under suspicionBeing a children’s author was once a charming career, building mysterious worlds of fantasy trees and secret adventures. Yet children’s authors do meet a lot of children: they do readings with children, they get letters from children; they are admired by children. And this, according to Ofsted, makes them a potential risk. Before, Ofsted decided that children’s authors did not need a CRB check, but that they should not be left alone with children when they visited schools. Now the organisation has decided that they do need to be checked, even if they are supervised, ‘because there is a chance for authors to build up a trusting relationship with the child’. The article in the Bookseller also noted that ‘Many authors also now communicate with their readers online, following events in schools and libraries or via their own websites.’ Well, talking to young readers online – that’s got to be grooming, hasn’t it? |
The Manifesto Club supports:'Enlightenment is humanity's emergence from self-imposed immaturity. Dare to know! Have courage to use your own understanding!' Immanuel Kant 'What characterises man is his extreme abundance of imagination; therefore, that man is a fantastic animal and that universal history is the gigantic, continuous and insistent effort to go, little by little, putting some order into the crazy fantasy.' José Ortega y Gasset |
