EPC has received a great deal of praise this week for our stand over the Government's toothless proposals for improving the family court system. Our media team put out a press release which can be found in EPC site's NEWS section at: http://www.equalparenting.org/news.htm
It has been wonderful receiving words of support from MPs (including Labour MPs) for our common-sense position and clear proposals for installing a new system that works for children. Family judges and pracitioners have also been supportive.
Earlier this week EPC met with leading mediators who also strongly support our approach. We are helping them develop parent education programmes that improve the effectiveness of mediation in difficult cases.
It is gratifying to know that good people are striving to improve outcomes for children while Lord Falconer and Margaret Hodge re-arrange deckchairs on the Titanic, instead of reparing the gaping hole in her side!
I'm not sure about Charlie Falconer. I suspect that he's a bit like the former Chairman of CAFCASS, Anthony Hewson. I formed a good relationship with Anthony, whose heart was in the right place. But he never really understood (until it was too late) just how corrupt our family justice system was (and is)!
Certainly Charlie Falconer seems much more down to earth than his impossibly arrogant and aloof predecessor, Lord Irvine of Lairg. Falconer probably wants to go much further with the reforms, just as I believe Lord Filkin wanted to do based on my couple of meetings with him. But Margaret Hodge and her cronies present too big an obstacle to effective change. Notice how Lord Filkin disappeared out of the picture as soon as it became clear that his line did not accord with Hodge's.
Media friends tell me that Falconer did not perform well at the press conference last Tuesday when these proposals were announced. Faced with a question about the daft electronic tagging idea, he was already backing-off big time!
At the end of the day, these proposals are an embarrassment to the Government. They were a cynical attempt to buy-off public hostility in the run-up to a General Election.
