Letter: The Harm of Immigration Raids

To the Editor:.

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14.03.2009. 01:12h

The way we live now

to be damaging health. If Britain were instead to concentrate on making its citizens' incomes as equal as those of people in Japan and Scandinavia, we could each have seven extra weeks' holiday a year, we would be thinner, we would each live a year or so longer, and we'd trust each other more. Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett don't soft-soap their message. It is brave to write a book arguing that economies should stop growing when millions of jobs are being lost, though they may be pushing at an open door in public consciousness. We know there is something wrong, and this book goes a long way towards explaining what and why. The authors point out that the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources. Wilkinson, a public health researcher of 30 years' standing, has written numerous books and articles on the physical and mental effects of social differentiation. He and Pickett have compiled information from around 200 different sets of data, using reputable sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the US Census, to form a bank of evidence against inequality that is impossible to deny. They use the information to create a series of scatter-graphs whose patterns look nearly identical, yet which document the prevalence of a vast range of social ills. On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes. Almost always, Japan and the Scandinavian countries are at the favourable "low" end, and almost always, the UK, the US and Portugal are at the unfavourable "high" end, with Canada, Australasia and continental European countries in between. This has nothing to do with total wealth or even the average per-capita income. America is one of the world's richest nations, with among the highest figures for income per person, but has the lowest longevity of the developed nations, and a level of violence - murder, in particular - that is off the scale. Of all crimes, those involving violence are most closely related to high levels of inequality - within a country, within states and even within cities. For some, mainly young, men with no economic or educational route to achieving the high status and earnings required for full citizenship, the experience of daily life at the bottom of a steep social hierarchy is enraging. The graphs also reveal that it is not just the poor, but whole societies, from top to bottom, that are adversely affected by inequality. Although the UK fares badly when compared with most other OECD countries (and is the worst developed nation in which to be a child according to both Unicef and the Good Childhood Inquiry), its social problems are not as pronounced as in the US. Rates of illness are lower for English people of all classes than for Americans, but working-age Swedish men fare better still. Diabetes affects twice as many American as English people, whether they have a high or a low level of education. Wherever you look, evidence favouring greater equality piles up. As the authors write, "the relationships between inequality and poor health and social problems are too strong to be attributable to chance". But perhaps the most troubling aspect of reading this book is the revelation that the way we live in Britain is a serious danger to our mental health. Around a quarter of British people, and more than a quarter of Americans, experience mental problems in any given year, compared with fewer than 10 per cent in Japan, Germany, Sweden and Italy. Wilkinson and Pickett's description of unequal societies as "dysfunctional" suggests implicit criticism of the approach taken by Britain's "happiness tsar" Richard Layard, who recommended that the poor mental health of many Britons be "fixed" or improved by making cognitive behavioural therapy more easily available. Consumerism, isolation, alienation, social estrangement and anxiety all follow from inequality, they argue, and so cannot rightly be made a matter of individual management. There's an almost pleading quality to some of Wilkinson and Pickett's assertions, as though they feel they've spent their careers banging their heads against a brick wall. It's impossible to overstate the implications of their thesis: that the societies of Britain and the US have institutionalised economic and social inequality to the extent that, at any one time, a quarter of their respective populations are mentally ill. What kind of "growth" is that, other than a malignant one? One question that comes to mind is whether the world's most equal developed nations, Japan and Sweden, make sufficient allowance for individuals to express themselves without being regarded as a threat to the health of the collective. Critics of the two societies would argue that both make it intensely difficult for individual citizens to protest against the conformity both produced by, and required to sustain, equality. The inclination to dismiss or neuter individuals' complaints may, Wilkinson and Pickett suggest, go some way towards explaining the higher suicide rates in both countries compared with their more unequal counterparts. Those who feel wrong, or whose lives go wrong, may feel as though they really do have no one to blame but themselves. What Japan and Sweden do show is that equality is a matter of political will. There are belated signs - shown in the recent establishment of a National Equalities Panel and in Trevor Phil lips's public pronouncements on the central place of class in the landscape of British inequality - that Labour recognises that its relaxed attitude to people "getting filthy rich" has come back to bite it on the rear. Twelve years in power is long enough to reverse all the trends towards greater social and economic stratification that have occurred since 1970; instead they have continued on their merry way towards segregation. Teenage pregnancy rates have begun to rise after a period of decline; there is a 30-year gap in male life expectancy between central Glasgow and parts of southern England; and child poverty won't be halved by next year after all (though it wouldn't make as much difference as making their parents more equal). There are times when the book feels rather too overwhelmingly grim. Even if you allow for the fact that it was written before Barack Obama won the US presidency on a premise of trust and optimism, its opening pages are depressing enough to make you want to shut it fast: "We find ourselves anxiety-ridden, prone to depression, driven to consume and with little or no community life." Taking the statistics broadly, they may be correct, but many readers simply won't feel like that. However, the book does end on an optimistic note, with a transformative, rather than revolutionary, programme for making sick societies more healthy. A society in which all citizens feel free to look each other in the eye can only come into being once those in the lower echelons feel more valued than at present. The authors argue that removal of economic impediments to feeling valued - such as low wages, low benefits and low public spending on education, for instance - will allow a flourishing of human potential. There is a growing inventory of serious, compellingly argued books detailing the social destruction wrought by inequality. Wilkinson and Pickett have produced a companion to recent bestsellers such as Oliver James's Affluenza and Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety . But The Spirit Level also contributes to a longer view, sitting alongside Richard Sennett's 2003 book Respect: The Formation of Character in an Age of Inequality , and the epidemiologist Michael Marmot's Status Syndrome , from 2005. Anyone who believes that society is the result of what we do, rather than who we are, should read these books; they should start with The Spirit Level because of its inarguable battery of evidence, and because its conclusion is simple: we do better when we're equal. • Lynsey Hanley's Estates: An Intimate History is published by Granta Society guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

A hard-hitting study of the social effects of inequality has profound implications, says Lynsey Hanley We are rich enough. Economic growth has done as much as it can to improve material conditions in the developed countries, and in some cases appears...

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14.03.2009. 01:12h

Kent Jones, the associate director of programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, stepped down.

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14.03.2009. 01:09h

career. It was hyperbole, maybe, but there was a little less scepticism in the air last night after he took apart the Doral course for a second successive day to move clear of the field at the CA Championship. The American left-hander ended the day at 13 under par, two shots clear of his countryman Nick Watney. Kenny Perry, a 49-year-old who proved age is no barrier to great golf, and Rory McIlroy, a 19-year-old who proved, well, exactly the same thing, finished the day one shot further back. Tiger Woods, meanwhile, was much, much further back, charting unknown territory – for him – in a tie for 35th place, 10 shots adrift of the leader. No offence to Watney and Perry, both of them good players and decent coves, but if neither is the favourite to win – this looks like Mickelson's tournament to lose – then they are in a two-horse race for the spoilsport of the week award. The prospect of the world No3 and McIlroy playing together in the final pairing of today's third round was almost too delicious to contemplate. Never mind, it may only be delayed by a day. Indeed, it seems almost inevitable given the way McIlroy and Mickelson reduced the defences of the fabled "Blue Monster" yesterday to something less frightening than confetti. McIlroy, three weeks into his professional career on this side of the Atlantic, continues to be a revelation, so much so that his six-under-par 66 might be described as the worst he could have scored. The blemishes – a couple of short putts missed – were more than outweighed by the brilliance. One shot in particular, an arrowed 268-yard fairway wood over water to the par-five 8th green, will live long in the memory. The galleries were agog; America is agog. The only person who is seemingly unfazed is McIlroy himself. "It has been said a lot of guys my age have the same attributes and the same physical talents," assessed the 19-year-old. "But I suppose it is how you deal with the attention and the pressure. I seem to deal with it pretty well." A good third round today and the world will discover exactly what the young man is made of. Should he find himself in Mickelson's company tomorrow, he will find himself cast into the molten core of the golfing world. Woods has looked nothing like the world No1 this week, but the left-hander has been a more than capable stand-in, both in intent and in execution. "I am playing as well as I ever have. From 50 yards in, my short game has never been better and I have never driven the ball this far and this straight," Mickelson said on Thursday – a bold statement from a man whose career has been built on a breathtaking short game. To that he has added an infinitely more accurate long game. Standing up and giving the ball a rip off the tee might not work on a US Open course, but it has certainly worked at Doral, where the rough is shorter than a marine's crew cut. Indeed, the most critical thing that could be said about Mickelson's second round of 66, six under par, was that it was one shot worse than his first round; the most complimentary thing is that it was a thrilling exhibition of ball-striking and sheer nerve, making seven birdies and using the driver with surgical precision. "I can't wait for Augusta to get here," he said. It's coming Phil. It's coming. Golf Tiger Woods guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

• American world No3 makes good his boasts with 66 • Tiger Woods languishes in a tie for 35th place at Doral As the cynics smirked and the golf historians reached for the record books, Phil Mickelson declared this week he is playing the best golf of his...

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14.03.2009. 01:07h

Liberals acknowledge tough future

THE Liberal Party has a lot of rebuilding to do, its faithful heard at the start of their national conference in Sydney.

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14.03.2009. 01:07h

Liberals acknowledge tough future

THE Liberal Party has a lot of rebuilding to do, its faithful heard at the start of their national conference in Sydney.

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14.03.2009. 01:07h

Pollution fears threaten Kashmir's floating hotels

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14.03.2009. 01:06h

• Donington Park work must be complete by summer 2010 • Additional F1 races in South Korea and India scheduled The failure of the owners of Donington Park to complete extensive revisions to the circuit in time for the summer of 2010 would mean the loss...

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14.03.2009. 01:05h

Lacklustre Old Firm aim to silence critics

disenchantment. This had been, many argued, the worst Old Firm encounter in living memory and further proof, the critics added, of how low the pair had collectively sunk within the past decade. The Rangers goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, faced no meaningful action throughout the 90 minutes. Tomorrow the teams can counter that argument, when they meet in the climax of the Co-operative Insurance Cup at Hampden Park. Cup finals between the Glasgow giants have been rare in recent times – four in the past two decades – but they will face each other with onlookers seeking a fitting finale even if the respective clubs have only winning in mind. "Celtic supporters and Celtic players will tell you there has been many a dour cup final," said Gordon Strachan, the manager. "You don't remember that. You just remember the victory. That's all that matters in history – which team wins the cup." Such sentiment is echoed at Rangers even if, according to the veteran defender David Weir, what has seemed to descend into a national vox-pop over the Old Firm's demise was over the top. "I think it has been created by the media, to be honest," Weir said. "I think we kick ourselves at every opportunity. There is a lot of good stuff in Scottish football and people seem to concentrate on the negatives." Perhaps there has merely been little else to discuss. Twelve months ago, Celtic had competed in the last 16 of the Champions League for a second season in succession as their city rivals progressed to the Uefa Cup final. This year, early European exits have heightened despondency and sparked analysis over where things have apparently gone wrong. "If you look at cup finals down the years, in both Scotland and England, there have been very few cracking ones," warned Pat Nevin, the former Chelsea and Scotland winger who will form part of the BBC's punditry team at Hampden. "In fact, there have been quite a few dire finals. If that is the case this time, it will be used as another stick to beat the Scottish game with when, in reality, cup finals should be treated in isolation." Nevin highlighted a minute long sequence from the match last month when both teams literally passed the ball back and forward to each other on a recent television appearance. He is an advocate of what he regards as an "old fashioned" theory, one which suggests that the Old Firm have a duty to entertain on an occasion such as tomorrow's final. "I wanted to entertain people when I played football because I had enjoyed being entertained when I was watching as a kid," Nevin added. "If those on the pitch nowadays do not entertain, what reason is there for youngsters to keep watching? And I would argue the Old Firm, for the simple reason they have more resources than any other club in the country, have more of an obligation to entertain than others." Yet fiscal realities mean there will be no Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne or Henrik Larsson equivalent to grace the Mount Florida turf. The Rangers assistant manager, Ally McCoist, believes it is unhelpful to the class of 2009 to be unfavourably compared to their counterparts of yesteryear with such regularity. The aesthetically pleasing aside, an interesting nuance of this final is that it will be Strachan and Walter Smith's first against the other half of the Old Firm. While that is partly understandable for Strachan, who arrived in Glasgow only in 2005, the fact Smith's combined nine-year Ibrox tenure has never included a final with Celtic is a surprise, even to the man himself. The pair, perhaps more so than any others in the same position down the years, have an obvious mutual respect for each other that goes beyondhandshakes at full-time. "It's about uniqueness," Strachan said. "In this job only he and I know what it is like. After games, we talk for half an hour just ourselves. Only we know what we deal with in the world, win lose or draw." Questions regarding how, rather than if, your team will win now come with the territory. CIS Insurance Cup Celtic Rangers guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The United States has discussed sending some Guantanamo Bay detainees of Yemeni citizenship to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation, according to a diplomatic source with knowledge of the discussions.

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14.03.2009. 01:02h

Yemeni Gitmo detainees may go to Saudi Arabia

The United States has discussed sending some Guantanamo Bay detainees of Yemeni citizenship to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation, according to a diplomatic source with knowledge of the discussions.

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14.03.2009. 01:02h

Injectable Macrolane gel: my big 'boob jab' disaster

To quit showbusiness at the height of one's powers is no easy thing. And so when I made my Very Special Unique Exclusive Announcement at the O2 Arena the other day, it meant so much to me to be surrounded by the love of my supporters. You know, it's funny:...

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14.03.2009. 01:01h

'I feared she might float away'

the 13th. We had no reason to believe that, by the end of it, we would not still be a family of three. Obviously you can get things like that badly wrong. We awoke to a cold, overcast morning. Ann was 31 weeks into what we had scheduled as a 40-week pregnancy. We were busy London people - babies had to be diarised like everything else. Our first child, Tom, had arrived pretty much on time. We assumed our second would have similar plans. Ann had stomach cramps that morning, but put it down to her meal the night before. She drove herself off to University College Hospital, where she worked as a consultant oral surgeon. I was taking a year out to do a master's and set out later in a slightly more leisurely manner for City University. We left Tom, playing happily, in the care of our nanny, Liz. It was a pretty regular kind of day - at first. Half way through the morning, I was called out of a lecture to be told that I had a daughter. Ann had gone into labour even before she could start treating her first patient and had been rushed to maternity. As Ann's pregnancy had progressed, we had noted the various landmarks. We knew 31 weeks was early, but still viable (to use the term in its technical sense). As I walked to the hospital, it was with a feeling of great anticipation rather than foreboding. A daughter ... this had to be good news, surely? I arrived to discover that we had a very sick daughter. I stood by her incubator, looking at a small pink person. Perspex enclosed her. She lay on a sort of white bean bag, her thin arms stretched out as though sunbathing. Her eyes were covered with gauze and a breathing tube was fixed in place. I tried to count the wires and tubes that were attached to her tiny body, but it was difficult to sort them out. A green tube joined on to a white one, which then bifurcated and headed off towards a heavy-looking piece of kit. Which did what, exactly? There seemed to be a line pretty much for every bodily function. Machines monitored her. Machines kept her breathing. It was machines she needed - not us. Quite early on, people came to take a picture of her, which we thought was kind. Only later did it occur to us that they had done this because we might like a photo of our daughter while she was still alive. Nobody quite put it in those terms, but it was made clear to us that babies this small and this ill did not always pull through. Doctors came to explain what the equipment did, and reassure us as best they could. The nurses were friendly and efficient. The time passed in a blur. Later, Liz brought Tom in to see his sister. I know because in our photograph album we have a picture of a chubby toddler looking on bemused as a young nurse re-attaches a monitor to a small baby's chest. But my recollections of those first few days are quite hazy. I know we spent a great deal of time in the neonatal intensive care unit, for the most part watching our daughter sleep. She did that in spite of the bright lights, the constant hum of machinery and the wailing of the other babies. She slept, and she struggled for life without knowing what life was. We should, I guess, have been unable to sleep ourselves, with the worry of a sick child. Yet what I remember is feeling strangely detached from it all. There were no decisions for us to make. She was in the best place she possibly could be, receiving the best treatment she could receive. We had no role to play except to wait and watch. Perhaps if my future self had been able to whisper to me that this was our daughter Catrin in that box - the same Catrin who, one day, would cover the entire kitchen wall in crayon - it might have seemed more real. But she was not even Catrin at that point. The label at the end of her incubator still read "Baby Tyler". We had thought that we still had two months in which to choose a name. We were still toying with calling her Lucy or Victoria or Kate or Sophie. After she was born, deciding on a name seemed the least of our problems. It was the impatience of the nurses at having to call her "Baby" that eventually forced our hand. After three days of anonymity, she became Catrin. The name is, as Catrin has had to spend her life explaining, the Welsh version of Catherine. Perhaps if we had had longer to think about it, we might have spared her years of having to spell out her name to people and of visiting pottery shops without ever finding a mug with her name on it (except in Wales). Had she hung on until 40 weeks she might have been called Lucy. She has nobody but herself to blame. Things should have got slowly better, but they suddenly got very much worse. One of Catrin's lungs collapsed. We wondered if we were ever going to be able to bring her home with us. This did not worry Tom. He thought a new sister would expect to share his bedroom and be some sort of competition. A sister who lived in a plastic box some way from the house struck him as a happy compromise. He also liked visiting the neonatal unit, where the nurses fed him chocolate biscuits and told him how brave he was. One moment I do remember clearly in all this was the first time Catrin was well enough for me to be allowed to hold her. When I picked her up, it was almost as though she wasn't there. She still weighed so little, that all I could feel was the weight of the blanket she was wrapped in. I had the sudden and irrational fear that she might simply float away from me. We still had no idea if she was going to be ours to keep. The fear that she might die faded only slowly, to be replaced with a new fear. Premature babies can suffer from a range of disabilities. A nagging voice inside me told me that she might be brain-damaged. She might never communicate with us. She might never walk. Another voice pointed out that some premature babies, such as Mozart, turned out to be geniuses. We might have worried more if we had not had marvellous support from everyone at UCH and from the premature baby charity Bliss. They gave us the facts we needed. They gave us confidence. They gave us our daughter. Finally in April, two months after she was born, Catrin joined the rest of the family in Islington, north London. We continued to worry about brain damage until Catrin went back to hospital for a series of tests on her first birthday. She came out of UCH the smuggest baby in London, having been praised by the doctors for pretty much everything they asked her to do. She has yet to compose that important first symphony, but in all other respects she's fine. She is now in her final year at Bristol University, studying English. Yet, it might not have been like that. When Ann told me that she had stomach cramps that morning, I suggested she stayed home. Had she followed my advice, she would have not already been at the hospital when she went into labour. Things might not have turned out so well. The other reason for Catrin's survival owes nothing to chance and a great deal to science. When she was born, we knew relatively few paediatricians. Coincidentally, years later, I got to know most of them, when I became chief executive of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. That is how I can state confidently that one of the great advances in medicine in recent years has been in the treatment of premature babies. Very premature babies who would have had no hope of survival 40 years ago, now have excellent prospects. This is due to the skill of the neonatologists and paediatric nurses. It is also due to the research funded by organisations such as Bliss. Without these clinicians, without this research, Catrin almost certainly would not have survived. She might, perhaps, have been disabled. Instead, she is running in the London marathon this year. The charity she is supporting is Bliss. If you see a small blonde girl with the number 2048, running in a Bliss shirt, please cheer her on. A Very Persistent Illusion by LC Tyler is published by Macmillan New Writing, ?14.99. To order a copy for ?13.99 with free UK p&p, go to the Guardian bookshop • If you would like to sponsor Catrin and donate to Bliss, then please visit justgiving.co.uk/catrintyler Premature birth Family guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Catrin Tyler's life hung in the balance when she was born prematurely. This year, she is due to run in the London marathon. Her father, Len Tyler, looks back to when the winning line meant survival To begin with, it seemed like a perfectly normal Friday...

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14.03.2009. 01:01h

Does Granny know best?

her husband, Harry, at university, and at 23, having worked for a year, started to have children. It was an unusual decision for her age and milieu - her dad was an Oxford don and she and her brother had degrees from Cambridge - and it put her out of step with her friends who, like me, have only just begun a family. Now 34, she has three children and is the author - with her grandmother, Kitty - of a new guide to motherhood. We meet in a cafe to talk about the book, and I tell her she looks incredibly sleek (she protests enormously but what can I say? It's just what I saw). I get the impression that early motherhood has made her guard her skittishness jealously, so she seems more girlish than other women her age. She is given to turns of phrase - such as "I'm a nice, fun mummy" - that, if I heard them in a sitcom, would make me rail: "Women don't talk like that!" At the same time, she emanates a maturity and credibility that is all the more attractive for the fact that she's trying to hide them. This is a roundabout way of saying that I had decided beforehand not to like her, and then I liked her. Why would anybody decide not to like Fraser? Mainly because of her parenting books, the latest of which is called A Spoonful of Sugar: Old Fashioned Wisdom For Modern Day Mothers. It's probably enough just to say that from the cover it doesn't look like my cup of tea. With a post-Cath Kidston faith in the charm of things that are old, it's illustrated with embroidery ducks and a lickle house. On the back is a photo of Fraser, who looks unlike herself, neither better nor worse, just unengagingly perfect, like a model in Good Housekeeping. Fraser is already known as the author of two parenting-ish books, The Yummy Mummy's Survival Guide and the Yummy Mummy's Family Handbook, upon publication of which a lot of people in the media spatchcocked her like a quail (or any other fine-boned, posh bird). This is where we start, with this earlier, sometimes maligned book that I admit I haven't read. "It got horribly misunderstood by people who wanted to see it as a yummy mummy, manicured thing, which isn't me at all ... " "It's partly the title," I interject, helpfully. "Well, that's publishing. They need a title, and it's a great title. It got a lot of publicity because of the title, which was good, but it got a lot of negative publicity as well, by people who thought it was all about manicures, which you can tell I don't have. I have chewed, dirty nails." I don't buy that as a defence against perfection, which I think is what this is about: Fraser epitomises the conservative (with a capital C too) ideal of motherhood: didn't leave it too late; didn't leave her kids to go off to work; didn't jeopardise her husband's career; didn't let herself go; isn't a ballbreaker or a nag, but isn't a pushover; has her own ideas and isn't afraid to speak them; still goes running; is giggly in a feminine way but not inane ... "I'm sure one of the things that attracted me about Harry," she says, sweetly, "is that he's a very equal person. It's not like I looked at him and thought 'I want your babies', it's just that he's very fair. I did the lion's share, for sure. I gave up work for a long time, to look after the children. But for a guy, he does a lot, a lot, a lot." The term yummy mummy was invented for her. So it's going to take a lot more than unpolished nails to militate against the impression that she is the beginning and end, the upstairs-downstairs, of this very modern feminine trope that many of us find absurd and, oh OK then, nauseating. But there is something weird about the way mothers are ranged against each other, like football teams; the yummy ones against the slummy ones, the at-home ones against the working ones; the traditional ones against the modern ones (I think this last is mainly about whether you make your own cakes). You read the most incredibly sour attacks, on one style of parenting by another, in magazines and little loo-books that always used to be anodyne. What am I supposed to be reacting against, when I fall into line against the yummy ones? The USP of her latest book is the granny angle: it's written in a chatty way, with Granny's Tips dotted about in boxes - the form will be familiar to readers of any self-help book. These "pearls of wisdom" are mainly pretty straightforward, actually: "Making children eat up everything on their plate is not helpful at all. Give them less, avoid snacks and they'll eat what they need." She decided to write it after going to Scotland to see her ill grandmother. "We didn't know one another very well when I was growing up. I was in awe of her. I wouldn't have upset her, because I'd have got a good old ticking off. And I think she thought I was a bit of an idiot. But then she watched me mothering and thought I was doing a good job. So, as we talked about our children, we had this common ground of both being mums." Kitty Fraser, 85, lives in Braemar, where I phoned her the next day. I used to live near there for a bit, and I remember the crucifying beauty of the place - tinged by the chill of the people. I was scared when I picked up the phone, and not just out of geographical prejudice, but also because of the things she says. One of Granny's pearls is: "The way children are reasoned with is quite extraordinary to me - why can't you say to a child, 'This is how it is. I would like you to do this now, please', and not have to explain your reason why?'" It's not a fashionable way of going about child-rearing. The reason one thinks to reason with children, I suppose, is that they're human beings; they have human rights and can't just be moved about like chattel. Happily, she is easier on the phone than in print and makes me laugh straight away when I ask how many children she had. "Four. We had three, and then, well, we had another. It's funny to find you've still got something in the bag when you thought you'd drawn your last ha'penny." Even in conversation, though, she thinks we're going to hell in a handcart: "There has been a loss of discipline throughout the country. It's easy to let go, but it's not very easy to bring back." Her granddaughter disagrees with her a lot on this matter - she's not into smacking, for instance - but she also thinks that modern parents have a troubled, uncertain response to being disciplinarians. Liz says later that a lot of parents either let everything go or overreact, aggressively. I understand this: I don't have the first clue how to be an authority figure. I would never want to set out to be frightening, which is how I feel it was done when we were kids, but I don't know what you would do instead. I suppose I went into this thinking that if you jettison all the cornerstones of old-fashioned child-rearing - the bits where you hit children, ignore them and treat them coldly until they bend to your will - then what is the point of trotting out the homespun wisdoms, such as saying that "kids need a line to be drawn"? It's like abolishing slavery, then saying what nice pyramids you can build with 10,000 unpaid hands. Fraser totally turned me round. She believes utterly in her authority, her ability to impart it without having to be uncivilised. There is no hint of bravado when she says: "My kids respect me 100 per cent. I always try to get across: 'I'm not bullying you, I'm not an authoritarian, but I am in charge.' "As a parent, you have to get to grips with yourself in that role. To your child, you know everything, because you're his parent. Children get a lot of security out of really believing that. That's something that Granny said to me: you're not being cruel to your child when you show them who's in charge, because someone's got to be, and if it's not you, who is it?' "I was hoping it might be somebody at school ... " I suggest. "They won't, though. They don't have time. There are 30 people in the class, four of them are delinquent, six of them don't speak English." She convinces me: she genuinely seems to know how these things are done. As an aside, I think maybe grandmother and granddaughter have become more and more similar in the writing of the book. Liz says her granny's quite rightwing, and I ask her, later, where she'd put herself on the political spectrum. "I would say left of centre. I'm very pro ... you know, choice, equal opportunity, a hard day's work earns you money, in as much as the next left-of-centre person would." I remain unconvinced about the hypothesis that everything for children in the UK has gone to seed. Most of her "grim, bleak" pictures are based on the Unicef report of 2007 (see Helene Guldberg's critique