What is the world coming to when Blue Peter Badges can be bought instead of being earned the stiky plastic way?

Well, there's a real sign that society is crumbling. Forget cash for questions, payments for peerages, loans for influence - that's just small fry.

The real scandal is that you can now buy Blue Peter badges on eBay. This could be the beginning of the end...

Fork out £150 and you too could have the glamour and the glory and be the envy of your friends.

Once upon a time a Blue Peter badge represented hard work and effort and a certain sort of wholesome decency. The Blue Peter badge winner is the epitome of a certain type of worthy child, the sort of child that not only wastes good mucking about time actually making something out of old egg boxes, tin foil and sticky-backed plastic, but then bothers to write a letter about it as well.

Now all it takes to get a badge is a doting parent with a credit card and a willingness to fork out the dosh.

And why?

True, the Blue Peter badge does give you free entry into some museums and attractions - including Jorvik, Vindolanda, Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre, the World of James Herriott. But £150 will get a child into those and a lot more and you would still have change for an ice cream.

So maybe the parents are buying the kids status, a chance to show off in front of friends, or in front of ticket collectors. But it's a temporary, unearned sort of glory. All show and no substance, a neat little metaphor for modern society.

Parents may kid themselves that their children deserved it really, that they would have won a badge if they'd bothered to do anything for it.

But the children will know the truth of it. The Blue Peter badge is an honour and they will know it's one they don't deserve, that it's nothing to do with their achievements.

An honour that depends not on merit but on the size of your wallet is a pretty hollow and meaningless trinket.

Just ask some of the recent Labour peers.

WOMEN who stayed at home to look after their families were regularly dismissed as "only housewives". Their contribution to the world at large was thought not to extend much beyond cooking, cleaning and bringing up the children.

Then more women went out to work. Guess what? Now researchers say that the fabric of society is crumbling. It was "only" housewives who kept the world turning properly, kept kids out of trouble, looked after elderly relatives, kept an eye on neighbours, all this while feeding the family properly on about tuppence a week.

Pity they didn't show so much appreciation at the time.

But if all mothers gave up work today and stayed at home, would society be grateful and reward them accordingly?

Exactly. Don't hand in your notice just yet, girls.

Published: ??/??/2004