The English, on the whole, do not like children. As the size of the prison population demonstrates, we are also a nation of punishment freaks. Put the two together and you have a society where hitting tiny tots is not only acceptable but a moral duty.
New Labour thinks so too.
Britain was the last country in Europe to ban corporal punishment in schools - and then only because the European court of human rights gave us no choice. The present government now seems determined to be the last in Europe to outlaw the beating of children by parents and nannies. The message being, presumably, that it's OK to hit people who can't fight back. This isn't wallop, it's codswallop. No doubt many an 18th century squire believed that he was demonstrating love and firm discipline within the family set-up when he whacked his wife or housemaid.