THERE cannot be anyone “normal” who isn’t sickened by details of the injuries which led to the death of the infant known as Baby P, and enraged by officialdom’s blunders and incompetence. From November, 2006, until he was found in a blood-spattered cot, lying in his own urine and faeces, in August of 2007, he had been systematically beaten and tortured by his stepfather, an alleged neo-Nazi.

Yet he was on Haringey child protection register and, two days before he died, was seen by a doctor who failed to diagnose that his back and several ribs had been broken. And this in the same borough which came in for widespread condemnation following the death of Victoria Climbie, the eight-year-old girl who perished in similar circumstances, in 2000.

Politicians on both sides of the House are involved, with Gordon Brown promising to do his utmost to ensure the UK will be the safest place in the world for children. We will get to that bit later, but it is difficult to see how Haringey social services can survive the clamour for sackings over its failure to protect Baby P, especially as a “whistle blower”, identified as a social worker dismissed by the council, had written to government ministers, alleging breaches of child protection in Haringey.

This is a saga which will run and run. However, the name of Sharon Shoesmith, Haringey’s director of children and young people’s services, has not figured among the apologists for the death of Baby P. She said: “This child was killed by members of his own family”, which is stating the blindingly obvious while overlooking the equally transparent fact that her department was responsible for his welfare.

Meanwhile, social services, and police, have been criticised following the killing in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, of two young brothers, one aged two, the other three months, by their mum, who has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, adding weight to the argument that the Prime Minister faces a monumental task to guarantee protection for children. There is no system in place to determine a person’s suitability for, or awareness of, the responsibility which parenthood brings.

Yes, official adoption agencies have one, but I’m talking about women who produce offspring without planning for their upbringing, and men who father children then vanish into the ether, making way for a succession of “uncles” who view the child as an inconvenient or unwanted addition to the relationship with the mother.

A sad example is that provided by Karen Matthews, the mother accused of complicity in the kidnapping of her daughter Shannon. She has seven children, fathered by five different men and is described as “poorly educated”.

With society littered with broken homes, and children born into domestic circumstances which doom them from birth, Mr Brown’s well-intentioned campaign has little if any chance of success. Somewhere between none and sod all is my prediction.