"Events dear boy, events"

That was UK PM Harold Macmillan's response to someone asking what is most likely to blow governments off course - and thanks to the drawing of John Boscawen's Crimes (Reasonable Parental Control and Correction) Amendment Bill, we are likely to see a perfect example of this. Like it or not, the government is now going to spend the next year to eighteen months bogged down in a rehash of the debate over child-beating, pitting the empirical evidence of child advocates and health experts against the knee-jerk stupidity of the uninformed and the hate of Christian fanatics (who feel that the bill does not go far enough because it rules out using weapons such as wooden sppons, belts and horsewhips). That was bad enough the first time, and it'll be even worse now. Really, can't these bigots just piss off back to Alabama where they belong?