Why are adult murderers of children given a pass in the media ? People who are supposedly in full control of their motivations and fully cognisant of what they are doing and the effect it will have ? Yet, with the exception of the moors murderers 50 years ago nobody has aroused the same hatred as two 10 year old boys who killed.
Does Brown understand the motivations of people who can hate children who kill more than adults who do the same or worse ? Does he understand how the UK criminalises children at a younger age than any of our more civilised neighbours. europe is aghast that we tried two 10 year old boys in an adult court for an adult crime and punished them as if they were as understanding of what they had done as any 20 or 30 year old contract killer.
What they did was barbarous. But they were children and did not really understand. What we did to them in turn was barbarous and we're supposed to know better.
And the public, with its foaming lynch mob mentality, is easily press-ganged by media moguls into viewing another candidate for the Goldstein two-minute hate as the be-all and end-all of those who are vermin to be attacked on sight. It's exactly the same as Germany in 32.
As John Cooper-Clarke wrote
"The people pay, the paper sells its plug-ugly sub-animal yells"
there is an interesting story to tell about why the public are more outraged about children who kill. why such stories strike deep into the psyche, of lost innocence, of threatened childhood. But you will not find it today in the newspapers. Just shrill calls for some chink in officialdom's armour so that the baying mobs can break through with pitchforks and flaming torches to rend the monster limb from limb. keep to the Fen Causeway
It was extremely interesting and written by a woman who has been researching this for some time to write a book on it - not specifically about these two but how the demonisation of children now stems back to the impact that this case had at the time. These is also another article in today's G2 on the topic. Don't have time to search for it.
Of course Gordon Brown has to say he 'understands' the outrage. If he told people to stop hyperventilating en masse in another moral panic and to fuck off and mind their own business, there'd be further outrage against him for protecting henious devil boys. Ad astra per aspera
