The lies that led Hamzah Khan to his death Whatever "normal" ever felt like, it sounds as if it had been absent from the house for a very long time: Hutton was beaten by her former partner, Aftab Khan, throughout their 20-year relationship, resulting in numerous police visits. Social services, police, teachers and health workers were all in contact with Hutton, who appears to have been put firmly in the category of "victim" without it being acknowledged that victims can be oppressors too. He was registered with a GP, but never once attended the surgery or received immunisations. Eventually, the GP simply struck him off the practice list. It will suit the authorities, now, to emphasise the singular heinousness of Hutton's behaviour. We already know that, but we would be foolish indeed to let that distract from the fact that every single agency that should have been helping Hamzah and his siblings failed to intervene and prevent his miserable death and their neglect. In a series of such cases - Victoria Climbié, Baby "P," Daniel Pelka, and now Hamzah Khan - the public is often treated, in the aftermath, to wide-eyed official accounts of how uniquely devious and manipulative the parents were. In the case of Baby P, it was explained that his mother had knowingly misled social workers in the course of more than 60 visits in the nine months before his death. Who on earth would have thought that a woman twice arrested by police for allegedly assaulting her own son might be predisposed to lie? When Daniel Pelka was seen scavenging from bins at school for food, his mother apparently told the school and medical professionals that he had a "rare genetic disorder" that led him compulsively to overeat, and mustn't be fed. Although serious questions had already been asked about Daniel's condition, who apparently would have dreamt that a mother could tell untruths? I have no doubt that there are many social workers doing an impossible job in difficult circumstances, but the "multi-agency" approach seems often to mean that instead of everyone taking responsibility, no one does. Were we to look at Ms Hutton's file, I am quite sure it would be bulging with notes, referrals, reports, all steadily thickening as her youngest son was wasting away. After all these episodes, we are told that "lessons will be learnt," but the lessons have long been plain to see. In cases that already have red warning flags planted all over them, take close physical evidence and testimony from the child, not the parent: visit them, weigh them, check their clothes, diet, history and record of medical care, gain their trust, talk gently to them in secure, happy places away from their parents. The saddest thing is that long before Hamzah died, or was discovered, the world had apparently forgotten he was ever alive. Bread has little to do with dough Politicians are so often tasked by journalists to trot out the price of bread and milk that one might imagine advisers would hold an intensive "grocery run-through" before interviews. In that setting, the political team could artfully consider whether to stand before voters as a hand-baked, wholemeal leader (authentic, environmentally concerned, willing to pay extra and perhaps a tiny bit prissy) or a sliced white loaf type (a weather eye on the budget, far from health-obsessed, might even enjoy the odd cigarette). Perhaps they already do, which is why David Cameron last week exposed his breadmaker (reinforcing his credentials with the Waitrose-shopping posse), while Nick Clegg plumped for Warburtons sliced white (a choice with "regular guy" appeal). I shop for the family almost every day, and I can't tell you the price of bread, in part because I get so many kinds: bagels and pitta breads for the children, Irish wheaten for the adults, brown sliced for toast. The only time I can clearly recount the financial damage is if I pick up an artisan loaf crafted by Tuscan peasants in linen smocks, the sort of bread you never have enough dough in your purse for. Still, the question gets the psychology of grocery shopping during austerity wrong. Since bread and milk are basics, they are likely to remain in the trolley, and thus their cost gets lost in the final bill. If you know the exact price of bread, it's a sign of either penury or privilege - in the latter case, that you are a single-item shopper, frequently asked to "pick up one thing I forgot" by a cart-horse who dragged home the heavy lifting. Houses cost us more than money The past is rushing back so fast that it's biting the present on the ankles. Britain is, yet again, in the grip of a house price boom, and all those stress-related g-words - gazumping and gazundering - have resurfaced with a vengeance. Gazumping, if you remember, is when a seller ditches a verbal offer he or she has already accepted in order to take a subsequent higher offer. Gazundering is when a buyer waits until the last minute to slash the offer, in the awareness that the collapse of the sale will cause serious problems for the seller. There is a reason why house purchase in England and Wales is up there with divorce and bereavement among the most stressful events that can befall a person: everyone who walks the property tightrope is keenly aware that a large amount of time, money and planning can come to ashes in the flames of another person's greed or caprice. Little in the system rewards good behaviour, and much encourages bad. If we are to have property fever all over again, could the rest of Britain not adopt the Scottish model - in which the conveyancing system formalises offers at an earlier stage, and gazumping is rare - and spare ourselves the worst of its symptoms?