Love on the NHS by Matthew Formby Page A

spent playing video games and being silly with their baby son. Luke and Lily watched the whole of Lawson's Creek on DVD, which was wonderful. At the same time Luke was dismayed at how both his sisters got their babies to drink formula milk. It was full of unhealthy additives yet trying to persuade them to change was fruitless. Their children like most youngsters nowadays were loud and restless too and it gave Luke a headache. The travelling to get them was also a massive disincentive to see them. Buses to their homes were infrequent. It made no sense to Luke that in some towns in the south for years bus stops had had electronic notices with estimates of arrival times for due buses; but in Greater Woecaster they were nowhere to be seen. The buses to his sisters' houses went around serpentine developments of houses and both lived in dips that were colder than where Luke was, who was prone to chilblains
    It played on Luke's mind that they did not seem to want to push their children to attempt to achieve a state of perfection. Being a perfectionist himself he could not understand why anyone else would not aspire to excellence. Having experienced hard times in school due to eating poorly - and not having the strength to defend himself from assault or pay attention enough in class - he would have loved to make them realize, to see how essential it was to cook fresh meals. It was not always easy, he understood that; being so busy as parents are nowadays. But he did suggest to them cooking a big batch of soup which was fairly straightforward. In truth Luke probably did not grasp how economically straitened were times for new parents: not only were food prices rising, so too were mortgage costs. At least they both breastfed their babies. All Luke had read from recent research suggested it helped develop a feeling of love and trust in a young baby. He had never been breastfed himself - but then his mother had not been able to do so. Like any uncle worth his salt, Luke sought a better life for his nephews than his own.
    His sisters were good mothers but hearing about the children theirs played with reminded him there were so many bad parents out there. Lily and Adriana would tell him about naughty and mean things other children had done to theirs in play groups and shrug it off; such as most everyone did these days. What a shame that people no longer believed good behaviour was important. Fun was king - and anyone who had any sense of responsibility was seen as a sourpuss. Some parents' children were taken into care as their skills were considered so poor. But Luke did not usually agree with that harsh decision, even in circumstances where parents were violent to their kids. Putting people into care is a very risky decision. It is not only expensive for a government to finance someone living in care. It also is frequent for sexual and physical abuse to take place in care homes. It it impossible to express in words how horrible it is. For each individual, it is a different experience - even the violent anal rape of a vulnerable young boy can easily be viewed with institutional and professional indifference by social workers and members of staff.
    The problem of psychopaths is rarely given coverage in the media - most likely because the people running newspapers are themselves sick in the head - and so people have still not yet learned that it is often the most charming, friendly people who hide the darkest secrets. Inspections on care homes rarely find any abuse occurring as they are too obvious and the kind of psychopaths attracted to misusing their position of power for their own gain are too emotionally and socially intelligent to let slip what they are doing to people who pose a threat to their sordid life.
    After years of reports being covered up, we are now finding out members of staff in care homes as well as police officers have been implicated in widespread abuse. Yet even when long awaited reports are released parts of them have