I abhor smacking children. It's counter-productive, ill thought-out behaviour and the very few times I smacked my children the remorse was terrible. I'm all for encouraging other methods of discipline, reasoning chief among them. Nevertheless, I'm against the proposed new law to ban smacking. We already have laws to stop cruel treatment and the sad fact is they're not working. For 20 years I've had to join in television inquests on the deaths of small children. Their names haunt me - Jasmine Beckford, Heidi Kosega, Victoria Climbie - the list goes on and on and on. But one factor links them all - the total failure of the authorities and childrens' charities to intervene in time, in spite of multiple warnings from neighbours and sometimes even family members. One of the first "inquests" in which I took part was for Heidi Kosega, a little girl walled up in her parents' home until she starved to death. Three times a national charity was warned of her plight. Three times they took no action. A representative of that charity sitting beside me on TV whispered to me, just before we went on air, that post-mortem examination showed she had torn the wallpaper from the walls and eaten it to assuage her hunger. I thought I was going to pass out as the horror of that revelation came clear. Since then I have campaigned non-stop for the protection of children, but this new law will not stop deaths like Heidi's. It's supporters say it will stop abusers brought to court pleading the excuse of "reasonable chastisement". Those dead children never got to court until they were pathetic little corpses. And in every case an inquiry revealed a sad failure on the part of the caring agencies to intervene in time or to use laws which would have stopped the abuse in its tracks. The same organisation which failed Heidi Kosega had a chance to rescue Victoria Climbie, a chance it did not take. Social Services were less than useless in the face of repeated, unspeakable abuse. The proposed law will not deter the fiendish abusers for the simple reason that they will not be caught out by it. They pursue their cruelty behind closed doors and their children defend them against inquiries at school or in the street out of misguided loyalty or fear. What this law will do, in my opinion, is catch out the loving but harassed dad who loses his temper when his child runs into the road, the mum who comes to the end of her tether in the supermarket - these people are not bad parents, rather they're over-burdened ones and a court appearance could well finish them. Parenting must be judged as a whole. A law that says one slap and you're out won't help - and please don't tell me there won't be prosecutions for a single lapse. In every organisation there are jobsworths who relish implementing every little detail. Some otherwise good parents will wind up in court for one small lapse and who will lose? Their children. The result will be a climate of fear among parents who already have their hands full and question their own parenting skills. It will also be a snoopers' charter for any neighbour with an axe to grind. The Government has made an excellent move with Surestart, a marvellous scheme which offers help and support to parents of under-fives. In Derwentside recently I saw how well the scheme is working and the efforts being made to extend that support. A scheme like that can improve things faster than any legislation. We are told the Government is reluctant to put this new law on the statute book. I hope they stand firm, but I also pray they stiffen the laws already in place so that they truly protect the innocent. I also hope we can have an informed debate without the argument being polarised. Being against another law does not mean I approve of smacking. Phrases like "It's my right to smack" or "It's good for children" make me cringe. But so do banner wavers who seek headlines for a new law while letting old and potentially effective laws wither on the vine. Venus is the goddess of good sportsmanship Sometimes it seems that sport has lost its way in a maze of contracts and mega-bucks. Yet the flame still burns. Venus Williams was robbed of her chance at another Wimbledon title when the umpire awarded a point that should have been hers to her opponent. Neither woman appealed and Venus went out. Minutes later she was being quizzed by the BBC. Was she angry or disappointed? No, she said. The umpire had made a mistake but he didn't do it deliberately. That was the way the cookie had crumbled and she was accepting it. Later on, her sister Serena would show greater anger but Venus was calm and non-judgemental. I thought of how I might have behaved in such a situation. Not well, I promise you. Venus may have lost the match that day, but she gained a place in my good opinion that she is unlikely ever to lose. The man with two faces Someone has called Michael Moore "the king of the partial truth". I used to believe he was a sincere, if sometimes misguided, guy who liked to tilt against authority. Then I saw him in the flesh at an awards ceremony and realised how much this guy likes the limelight and how arrogance surrounds him like a cloak. If knocking the establishment will get him limelight, he'll knock the establishment. If posing as a man of the people will curry favour, that's how he'll pose. He has claimed that after 9/11 he was asked to tone down his anti-Bush book, Stupid White Men, and remove harsh references to the President. In fact, the book was printed, no one asked him to tone it down, but the controversy made sure it was a best-seller. His film, Bowling for Columbine, about the shootings at an American High School, made much of the bumbling replies of Charlton Heston, then president of the National Rifle Association. It neglected to point out that Heston was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and should never have been interviewed. In Cannes, his new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, played to huge acclaim. It is now being seen across America and opens here this week. It is said it will do much to lose George Bush the Presidency, accusing him as it does of oil links with Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family, cowardice, incompetence and much else besides. Moore is less than truthful about his own background, claiming to be a child born to working class privation. In fact his father was a manager who retired early to take up golf. Moore sends his daughter to a fee-paying school, uses private jets and demands five star hotels while claiming to be shoulder to shoulder with the world's underdogs. During his one-man show in London he accused the men on the doomed 9/11 jets of cowardice and said if there had been more black men aboard things might have turned out differently, causing several members of his audience to walk out in disgust. Now some members of his entourage have resigned, saying he is too obnoxious to work with. Two writers have produced a book about him, Big Fat Stupid White Man, and a documentary, Michael Moore Hates America, is in the making. Let's see how the biter likes being bitten. Name all the guilty men David Westwood, the Humberside Chief Constable, must resign because of blunders by his force which left Ian Huntley free to kill Holly and Jessica. I'm all for accountability. So, will the Minister who refused to fund a computerised police intelligence system which would have obviated the problem please stand up. And the headmaster who failed to take up Huntley's references. And Cambridgeshire Police who failed to check him out with Humberside. Oh, and don't forget Humberside Social Services, who swept allegations of Huntley preying on girls as young as 13 under the carpet and took no action when a girl of 15 moved in with him. If the head of one organisation is accountable, so must the others be and there are criticisms of agencies other than Westwood's in Bichard's report. In fact, criticism of the Home Office accounts for three-quarters of the listed criticisms, which makes you wonder if gunning for Westwood isn't a crafty way of deflecting our attention. And there's another good reason why I don't want the Chief Constable sacked. If we get a sacrificial head on a platter we'll all sit back, duty done, instead of making damned sure that the next Huntley will have his collar felt as soon as he lifts an evil finger. A step up Have you seen the BBC's Saturday night programme, Strictly Come Dancing? It's pure magic presided over by Bruce Forsyth. It has a wonderful orchestra, dresses to die for and the final takes place on Saturday. Natasha Kaplinsky and partner deserve to win, but Spencer from EastEnders, who dances like a Don Quixote windmill, is the viewers' favourite. When it's over it will leave a hole in the schedule which will be hard to fill. Driving me bats Before our untimely exit from Euro 2004, the Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas was scathing about the English as a nation. "They eat eggs and sausages for breakfast, drive on the left, play baseball with an oar, set times for drinking and think they are the best." I can take the personal abuse and even criticism of our licensing laws but likening cricket to baseball? Send in a gunboat! | 
