The heavy hand of love

Tony Blair can still show signs of amazing good sense:

The 52-year-old was quizzed by the presenter about his own parental discipline. "Do you smack your kids? Did you?... Did it cause a problem?" he was asked. Blair, who has four children aged five to 21, replied: "No, I think, funnily enough, I'm probably different with my youngest than I was with my older ones." Misunderstanding his reply, the presenter said: "What, you do smack the younger one?" Blair said: "No, no, it was actually the other way round but... I think, look, this smacking... I think everybody knows the difference between smacking a kid and abusing a child." [Emphasis mine.]

What's amazing, of course, is that this kind of thing makes front page news.