(82) Tests for suitability as parents

On March 27th 1992 for some reason I found myself thinking on an incident from August 1977 in Brighton.
I had stated to Andrew Martin and Graham Hillyard that if I had my way there would be tests to see whether people were suitable to be parents.

Their reactions to these thoughts of a seventeen year old were, "You Fascist bastard!" and "I think you’ve been reading a bit too much Aldous Huxley, lad!".

A couple of hours after that memory surfaced I made a remark to Russell Eley about the views of his father, which included the idea that criminals ought to have the nature of their crime branded on the foreheads.

(I once heard actor Warren Mitchell, having assumed the persona of the bigotted twit, Alf Garnett, say the same thing.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Garnett

Eley replied that his dad’s latest notion was that there should be tests to see whether people were suitable as parents.