The Opposite of Scouting?

Unfortunately it's a good deal less far removed from the ethos of Scouting than some of what goes on under the aegis of the Scout Association nowadays.

What reputation?

A quinquagenarian lady in charge of Beavers almost died and had to be taken to hospital after a her fruit cocktail drink was spiked by a typically vicious product of the modern Scout movement mischievous teenage Scout leader.

It's chilling to think that Beavers are now being taken on camp. Presumably it won't be much longer before the entire movement in this country is composed mainly of pre-schoolers and toddlers - like pets dressed up in strange costumes by their owners.

But what's rather more depressing is the way this poor woman was subsequently treated by the Scout Association.

[W]hen the mother-of-two from Norbury, south London told a local newspaper about her ordeal she was sacked by the Scout Association.

In a letter from the association's district commissioner Chris Williams, Mrs Setohy was told: "I am disappointed that you chose to bring this matter to the attention of the media and in so doing tarnished the reputation of the Scout Association. I have had no option but to withdraw your appointment."

"Tarnished the reputation of the Scout Association"? What reputation?

The Abolition of Scouting

It's the little things that give away what a ghastly old Trot deep down Peter Hitchens really is (not to mention the big things, such as his unhinged attitude towards President Bush). Whilst fuminating (quite rightly) against the disgusting modern Scout Association's sex-ed plans (which it now turns out were wheeled out in tandem with the Governments own sex-ed plans for very young children indeed), he also snorts derisively

I'm not too sorry to have missed the Scouts. I'm not wild about youth movements, even independent ones. They give off an odour of regimentation and enforced jollity that I don't much like. But if we have to have them, then independent ones are the only sort to have.

Regimentation! "Enforced jollity"! How could liberated modern youth ever be expected to tolerate such things?

This is a man who bangs on about The Abolition of Britain. But what sort of Britain would he actually want to preserve?

Sexed Down

Lindsay is his usual pompous self on the subject of the Scout Association's new sex-ed policy. He seems to be firmly of the opinion that Roman Catholic and other church Scout groups will somehow be able to resist the Association's latest wheeze. If such is the case then he if of course mistaken, since anyone who tries to resist will have no chance whatsoever. Since the 1960s every single decision taken by the Scout Association corporately has been ruthlessly enforced right down to the lowest level. If Catholic leaders refuse to show their boys how to put on condoms then legal proceedings will be begun to have them removed from the Association's lists and they'll be ostracised and frozen out. (The Association's website now has links to well-known abortion providers. Don't even think of protesting!)

Some of the Press have made the usual smutty innuendo - but then for most journalists that's all the Movement is now fit for, and their attitude to children in general is not much better. The Male is suitably alarmist, but then of course they would be wouldn't they. They also have a photo labelled 'a scout leader and his pack' - which makes me feel there really is no hope. Yes, it's natural to be a pedant about terminology if one knows what it's supposed to be (i.e. what it used to be)! But what this boo-boo in particular underlines is that for most people it's the Cubs - or "Cub Scouts" as they are now known, somewhat tellingly - who are now the public face of Scouting, and not the Scouts themselves. For all that the Scout Association's never-ending re-branding project has aimed at making the movement less juvenile (because of course that's what "modern kids" want), in reality its often no longer seen as being appropiate for anyone over the age of 11. And of course that only makes the new condoms policy all the more disturbing.

OK, let's do it! If a Scout (or any child below the age of eighteen) approaches a leader (or any adult over the age of eighteen) with questions of a sexual nature then that leader (adult) should immediately inform the Scout's (child's) parents or legal guardians - or, if he suspects that the Scout (child) has been sexually abused by said parents or legal guardians (as is often the case when children start asking inappropriate questions) then he should quite possibly alert the police, who will pass the matter on to social services. There can be absolutely no question about any of this, and anyone with a better developed moral sensibility than the average predatory child-molester would know to do this without even having to breathe, let alone think about it. And yet somehow the Scout Association has decided that its members, many of whom are not married, many of whom are only slightly older than the boys themselves (and girls, sadly), have all the authority they need to tell their charges about the facts of life.

Apart from that I have nothing much to say, other than that this is just yet another nail in the coffin of traditional Scouting. In the 1960s the Scout Association was taken over by a bunch of charlatans who abolished Baden-Powell's version of Scouting and replaced it with something the founder wouldn't even vaguely recognise. I mean, just go to their sodding "Explorer" (i.e. modern teenage Scouts) website. The first thing that comes up is a picture of multi-racial teenagers of both sexes sitting around indoors wearing baggy, American-style mufti clothes, watching television, playing on their mobile 'phones - and trying to get off with each other on the sofa.

And it's not even a photograph. It's a cartoon. Not only is this not real Scouting, but one wonders if there are even any real children involved in it.

For their own moral wellbeing, one certainly hopes not!