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Some of you may recall that quite a long time ago I blogged about a Lincolnshire schoolboy, Alan Penell, who was imprisoned for stabbing a schoolmate to death with a lock knife. What he did, I argued, was reprehensible but not all that surprising. For a small group of people school is unmitigating hell, a weird place with shifting, indefinable rule-sets where the unfortunate can find themselves ostracised and humiliated to the point of absolute desperation. The only surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Guess what?. The ineivitability of this is as depressing as the actuality, and the root of the problem lies in the parent's response. "The bullying was blown completely out of proportion." Yeah, maybe to you it was, maybe to all his contemporaries who took such delight in it it was just a bit of fun, but to Tommy Kimpton it was a constant source of misery, a prison from which he saw no form of release.

I'm not being an apologist for his actions, any attack of this nature is reprehensible and unjustifiable, obviously. All I'm saying is it isn't surprising; and that for as long teachers and parents fail to recognise that what appears harmless to them (and to most "normal, well-adjusted people" i.e. those who never went through this sort of shit) terrorises and damages a particular type of individual to the point that they see no other way out this sort of thing is going to happen again and again.

On a slightly happier note, Blair's Commons defeat raises a couple of interesting questions. Surely voting against a bill which one would consider to be entirely within their remit is as ruinous to the Conservative's credibility as Blair's defeat is to his (it was telling, I thought that Michael Mates, Anne Widdecombe and Fatty Soames numbered amongst the abstentions). Also interesting was the number of ex-cabinet ministers amongst the Labour rebels, including a fair few who happily went along with some of Blair's more entertaining excesses whilst they were in office (Michael Meacher, Frank Dobson, Gwyneth Dunwoody, and most hilariously of all, Clare "Bomber" Short).

So, voting with your principles or voting with expediency and revenge? I'm no fan of the 90 day rule, but I'm even less of a fan on the way the Hose of Commons has conducted itself in this matter.

So congratulations to Sir Peter Tapsell, the only Conservative to vote for the Bill.
And congratulations to the Labour rebels who have consistently opposed the Bill, not just when they thought they stood a chance of giving Blair a black eye. Ormskirk's very own Rosie whatserface was a good little Blairite and toed the party line, but at least she's been consistent in doing so, so well done to her also. The whole thing stinks to high heaven

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