At last, the true nanny state is revealed

The British government, increasingly Orwellian, now has plans to monitor all children from birth to the age of five and has established a development curriculum of sixty nine goals that all children should meet. Some of the criteria put forward and the ages for which they are deemed appropriate are as follows:

Birth-11 months

• Communicate in a variety of ways including crying, gurgling, babbling and screaming - I normally achieve this by chucking out time on your average Friday or Saturday night

• Play with their own fingers and toes and focus on objects around them

• Discover mark-making by chance, noticing, for instance, that trailing a finger through spilt juice changes it

Eight-20 months:

• Become absorbed in putting objects in and out of containers

• Get to know and enjoy daily routines, such as getting up time, meal times, nappy time and bed time - Oops - already we meet a criterion that I have never achieved despite being significantly older than 20 months or even years

16-26 months:

• Begin to move to music, listen to or join in with rhymes or songs - I've managed this with the caveat that I do dance like a white person

• Express feelings within warm, mutual, affirmative relationships

• Make random marks with their fingers and some tools

22-36 months:

• Have some understanding of the numbers one and two, especially when the quantity is important for them

• Show increasing control in holding and using hammers, books, beaters and mark-making tools

30-50 months

• Be able to use simple statements and questions often linked to gestures

• Form friendships with other children

40-60+ months

• Understand what is right, what is wrong and have a conception of why this is - Here we discover the hurdle that neither British Prime Minister Tony Blair, US President George Bush nor their legions of minions have been able to clear

• Complete a simple program on a computer - I hope they aren’t' expected to write one for fuck's sake

• Value and contribute to own well-being and self-control

• Begin to use talk to pretend imaginary situations - Does this include obeying the voices in my head?