I'm sorry Bounty but you have misunderstood the way the new legislation will work. Friends can continue to drop other friend's children off at school and other activities. So can members of the child's family. People will only need CRB checks if they form themselves into a club and take turns dropping groups of children off. This might sound a bit silly but it is to bring this arrangements into line with other, commercial ventures that require such legislation. It's to stop people being able to use loopholes to avoid the law because they have convictions against children.
If you look closely at what this 17 year Labour Government have done, you will see many good things have happened (however, one of them WAS NOT the invasion of Iraq). Firstly, the minimum wage was introduced. Secondly, winter fuel payments were increased. Thirdly, many young parents were encouraged back into the workplace by 'top up' payments that made it beneficial for them to work rather than claim benefits. This helped them to build up their skills, experience and knowledge in the workplace so they could move towards independence form these 'top up' payments. Additionally, many 'Sure Start' schemes were launched to address shortages of facilities for young families in disadvantaged areas. Further, strategies to address the problem of people with poor basic skills were launched. The Adult Core Curriculum - and training for people teaching basic skills on a more casual basis was launched and huge amounts of money has been spent on improving maths and English skills in the adult population. We still have a long way to go - but this government has done more to address this problem than any government in the last 50 years.
I could go on and on. Yes, they could have done more. Yes, I would have liked to see more nationalisation - but then re-nationalisation is very expensive and there were other priorities to tackle. I would definitely liked to have seen the government overturn some of the financial relaxations that were made by Old Bush/Thatcher - that way some of the appalling financial mess we are in would not have happened - but that would have put us at a considereable disadvantage unless America did the same. The government hasn't done a bad job, all things considered and I would not be so quick to put my faith in David Cameron.
