Britain continues its slow suicide
Social workers said we were too middle class and too white to adopt
As prospective parents, they might seem ideal. Gavin, 39, is an executive editor of BBC TV’s prestigious Question Time and The Politics Show. Teresa, 42, is a director of a staff recruitment business.
They have good incomes, a spacious home and a supportive family and friends. They have been together for nearly 20 years and married for ten.
Yet they have been ignored, rejected, patronised and repeatedly humiliated by Britain’s adoption system. They have willingly paid thousands of pounds, accepted rude and intrusive questions, completed countless bureaucratic forms and have come to a shocking conclusion: that all they can offer is outweighed by the huge disadvantage of being white and middle-class.
It is a story that illustrates the distressing truth about adoption – that children are routinely denied loving parents and a home because of politically correct policies that prevent the placement of black or mixed-race babies with white couples.
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‘We have discovered that if you are white and have a decent living, the adoption authorities put you to the bottom of the pile,’ explains Teresa.
‘This is despite the fact that there are children who desperately need families. It’s so heartbreaking that we have decided to speak about this in public.
'Many couples don’t dare say anything, fearing it will hinder their adoption. But we feel that children are being let down by a system that is wrong and operates on a set of imperatives that don’t work.’