Micro-managing society

Today the media is full of (appropriately) the dreadful story of this poor woman with a handicapped daughter who was driven to suicide by constant harassment by yobs whom the authorities are unwilling to do anything about. The story behind this woman's desperate act is depressingly familiar and all day I have been hearing from the various agencies and politicians who excuse themselves from blame and insist that lessons will be learned. The politicians in the meantime think in terms of new legislation or new controls to address the problem as they see it.
I grew up in a relatively law abiding society. I am not romanticising this. Of course there were rough areas and there were ruthless criminals (the Krays would be one example) but the main stream of society was pretty well isolated from criminals and vandals. The police and society in general was on top of the job and society was orderly, if somewhat boring. As I look back I see this as a legacy of late Victorian social activism. They cleaned up the statute books, they introduced compulsory schooling, public health and a strong interest in the welfare of the poor. I think their activities worked and by the time I was born there was a balance between government's interest in regulating society and society's willingness to be regulated. Since that time the reforming zeal of the regulators has gone overboard. Every aspect of society must be controlled and regulated. God forbid that any citizen should be trusted to take responsibility for themselves!
Today in our village a  group of chattering schoolchildren appeared in the square with clipboards - presumably on some sort of field survey. They were accompanied by four or five schoolteachers who hd them well under control. The children all wore high visibility jackets each emblazoned with the logo of the caring sponsor and the tag "Keeping our children safe".  I said all, but not quite all. Two boys were without their Hi-Vi jackets - presumably there were not enough to go around. What, I thought, would be the outcome if one of those two were unluckily in an accidental encounter? How could that be explained? We are constantly being pushed into ridiculous situations. The teachers supervising these children were undoubtedly responsible professionals who could be trusted in their duty of care. Except that someone ha decided that they could not wholly be trusted and that Hi-Vi jackets could insure perhaps against some teacher oversight or negligence. Put aside for the moment the thought that once these children left school at the end of the day they would discard the Hi-Vi jackets and go home in small groups, swinging their bags, playfully pushing each other and generally fooling around without supervision. Where are they more at risk?
This idea that regulation and legislation will create a perfect society is pure madness. The evidence after 50 or 60 years  runs counter to the argument. This week, which has coughed up some random examples, has show us that two policewomen who have made mutual baby-sitting arrangements have now been advised that they are breaking the law. And to compound this absurdity, we are told that OFSTED (and why are they involved in this?) are investigating a further 450 similar cases! Of course there are worthy spokespersons are only too happy to make the argument that all of this is worth it if it saves one child. I never hear the parallel argument that this same level of controls and legislation to eating would all be worth it if it saved one obese person from an early death. But I may not have to wait for long for that argument if this craziness continues.
The insidiousness of this nanny statism is that it is all done with the best of intentions. It is difficult to argue that some things are best left alone, that too much control and regulation is counterproductive, that more is often less.
If you give people control over their own lives and the responsibility that goes with, most will rise to the challenge. If people have deficiencies in one area or another they will find partners, friends and community support. This in the end is what community is all about. Unfortunately the trend of the last two generations has been to distrust community to manage its affairs. In recent years this distrust has extended to teachers, to doctors and nurses, to the police - none of these can be trusted to perform their professional functions and have to be restricted by monitoring and targets. If there is a legacy from Blair's ten years it has been to replace a service culture with a target culture.
I despair because I don't think any or much of this legislative meddling can be unpicked. It will probably take a revolution and that won't be pretty.