The controversy over the children's authors who will have to prove that they are not paedophiles (if it is possible to prove you are not something) before being allowed into schools has convinced me that the UK is on one big child protection guilt trip.
Tabloid headlines would suggest our record is far from impressive but to suggest that half the UK's adult population cannot be trusted to spend time in the company of children without the desire to molest them is insulting.
The government says the Vetting and Barring Scheme is a reaction to the Soham murders, carried out by Ian Huntley who worked in the school attended by the two girls he killed.
However, most paedophiles prey on children known to them, Huntley being a case in point. They are not authors who may occasionally drop into a classroom to tell stories in order to encourage children to to read.
If this database is to be imposed as we are led to believe it will, I do hope that religious ministers will also be expected to prove they are not child abusers, should they wish to enter the school gates.
After all, evidence suggests they are a much bigger risk than authors, delivery drivers, the engineer who fixes the school boiler and so on.
So what is this scheme really about? I would wager that it is a poorly thought-out way of apologising for failures in the past.
After Soham, it was a case of "something had to be done" and it is easier to log the details of half the adult population on a giant database rather than put resources into child protection services. It is an action steeped in guilt that serves little but to alienate the innocent.
You can hear author Philip Pullman's views - he describes the database as sinister and dispiriting - on Radio 4's Today programme yesterday.
And in the interests of balance, here's a link to the most recent edition of Today where the programme director of the Vetting and Barring scheme, John O'Brien, is interviewed.
I agree but would also ask how many MPs who go into schools to promote themselves have a CRB check before doing so? They do seem to be a bunch of people who have shown they cannot be trusted to understand right from wrong and use rules to their own benefit.