The world has gone mad.

Three stories in the news this week have caused my blood pressure to rise and me to wonder if New Zealand might be a good place to live.

The first is the story of the Great Tey dinner lady who told a girl's parents that she had been tied up with a skipping rope, The second is the case of the two women police constables who look after each others children and the third is that of the mother who killed herself and her daughter because her life was being made intolerable by thugs who terrorised the estate on which she lived.

The first two stories are of Political Correctness gone mad. The head and the Governers of the school in Great Tey should hang their heads in shame. They have a view of the world that makes me wonder what sort of world they live in. Whatever happened to the "Duty of Care" that they had for the little girl, and for the universal approach to good relations - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? the fact that one of the bullies was a child of a Governor and another Governor was the local Church of England priest only makes this story more appalling. What were they thinking of? Their own skins presumably. They should be collectively removed from office with immediate effect and sent for correctional training. The Dinner Lady should be re-instated.

The case of the two women police constables who were friends before they had children and during maternity leave worked out a regime of job-sharing and mutually benficial childcare arrangements should surely be held up as shining examples of how colleagues can work together to retain in post two skilled workers while providing secure and safe childcare. Ofsted should be told to mind their own business in the strongest possible terms.

The third story is the saddest. How we live together is surely the defining indicator of the kind of society we have created. The Police, the two councils involved, the residents of that estate and all of us must look hard at ourselves. Are we prepared to tolerate the behaviour of those animals who made the lives of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter so intolerable that she felt she would be better off dead? If not, then we must rise up and demand that something be done, and perhaps more importantly, we must be prepared to contribute our talents. May we all be forgiven.