Suffer, Little Children

‘NOT only are we what we eat (fat, fat, salt, fat and sugar), but we are what we watch, too.

‘What you lookin’ at?’

That’s the opinion of the great Margaret Hodge, the Children’s Minister, who is upset at how young people are portrayed on our TV screens.

The Mail, which dubs Hodge ‘nanny’, hears the minister say that children don’t like being portrayed as tearaways, and a new Children’s Commissioner would have powers to investigate the issue.

‘If we had a Children’s Commissioner today they could look at children’s obesity, the way children are portrayed in the media and issues around children’s constant demands for somewhere to go and something to do.’

But while we wonder what it is that Ms Hodge actually does, and why we need a new public servant to watch children on telly, the woman ploughs on.

‘When I talk to young people,’ says she, ‘they always talk to me about how they are always seen as yobs like the one in EastEnders – Martin – that’s the typical portrayal of a young person.’

‘They all say ‘we’re not like that – why don’t they portray us properly?”

They ‘all’ say it? This would suggest that the role of Children’s Commissioner is even easier than first imagined since children all seem to be watching TV.

Or discussing Martin’s antics with La Hodge…’

Posted: 10th, June 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink