See What They Did There?

Sorry, I was going to leave it, but this has been bugging me for 24 hours now.

Millions of people in England and Wales who work or volunteer with children and vulnerable adults will no longer need criminal record checks, ministers say.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he wanted to lift the atmosphere of suspicion and distrust cast over adults who simply wanted to help.

So, let's run a timeline on this.

Government brings in kneejerk legislation to fix an emotive problem. Their solution is to treat everyone as guilty until proven innocent, charging them for the privilege to pay for a brand new avenue of bureaucracy.

It is a huge success, because paedophiles are of course everywhere, and all of them - without exception - come with a handily labelled track record. There is also no collateral damage whatsoever.

The drive to create more pen-pushers make kids safe does, though, get a bit out of hand and is unpopular for many good reasons.

The coalition moves quickly to say that those who should never have been under suspicion in the first place will no longer be under suspicion.

Everyone applauds.

Meanwhile, the original kneejerk measure - which has had no discernible effect on preventing abuse - continues to regard double figure millions of the public as assumed guilty, ruining lives in the process, but providing a pointless security blanket for the small cost of £64 times 14 million.

How great art our benevolent state!