Children’s Minister Mrs Margaret Hodge is to spend £100 million to provide a massive computer containing details of every single one of Britain’s 11 million children. This is supposed to stop another case like that of Victoria Climbié, the child who was tortured to death by her aunt and the aunt’s lover. Mrs Hodge explained that a GP, for example, who is worried about a child’s loss of weight will in future be able to log his concern, and the information will then be available to a social worker who might come across the same child in another context. While Mrs Hodge is in a spending mood, it might be helpful if there was to be a similar database containing details of some of these self-same professionals. A major scandal has already been exposed involving Professor Roy Meadow. This silver-haired professional highlighted a hitherto little known condition he called Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. He claimed it was causing a number of mothers to injure their children in order to draw attention to themselves. Now another of these Munchies has come to light in the person of Professor David Southall, described as ‘an eminent paediatrician’, whose evidence has also resulted in a number of children being removed from their parents by the state. Wouldn’t it be helpful if these professionals were all listed on a database so that judges and social workers could be forewarned about any of their eccentric medical theories? Might it not also be an advantage to log all the details of government Ministers involved, for example, Mrs Hodge herself who, when head of Islington council, ignored evidence of child abuse when it was drawn to her attention?