Parents have been getting a lot of bad press recently, in a variety of ways. Prince Charles who is obviously a racist (according to the media) failed to prevent his son from calling a friend a ‘Paki’. Now we learn that this is all because of the bad example that the prince has set by calling his friend from the polo club ‘ Sooty’.

What a load of rubbish! Prince Charles is a lot of things, but he certainly isn’t a racist. What's more, I suspect that Ahmed Raza Khan, the aforementioned 'Paki' soldier and Prince Harry would quite happily fight alongside each other and risk their own lives to save each other if necessary. Harry was naive maybe, but racist? Oh please!

 I had a black friend at school called Chalky. To be honest, I didn’t even get the significance of the nickname for ages. He was a great guy, and was quite happy with the name, affectionately used as it invariably was.

And then there are the evil parents who torture their children. What makes them think this is OK? It isn’t – and understandably a huge amount of anger enters the public perception by way of response. How did these people come to think this was OK behaviour, we ask? Obviously their parents didn’t teach them the difference between right and wrong. Maybe.  Or that they are responsible for their own actions.

But hang on – I have taught my children a lot of things, but do they always act according to what they have been taught? What do you reckon? Do yours?

I’m not trying to abdicate my parental responsibility. Far from it – if my children misbehave, I will accept that I might have done more to prevent the behaviour, and will punish them.

But there will always be (and have always been) people who have huge capacity for evil within them, be it a mother in Haringey or an ambulance driver in Hove. The world is not a more evil place than it used to be, and parents are not doing any worse than they have always done; let’s not be too quick to jump on the bandwagon of blame, unless of course we are sufficiently without sin to cast the first stone.