I was pleased to be able to join Ramsbottom Councillor Ian Bevan, together with other local Councillors at Morrisons Supermarket in Ramsbottom this weekend, gathering signatures for our petition – Protecting Children Online.
I know that parents can’t monitor their children every hour of the day. When you’re busy at work or home, you want to be sure that they’re safe from harm. But increasing numbers are viewing inappropriate material on the internet.
I was shocked to learn that research shows 81% of children aged 14-16 have viewed adult material online; but only 46% of parents have filters in place on their online material.
We also need to protect children from people who use the internet to look at and share child abuse images and videos. We learnt from cases like the murder of April Jones that people often start accessing extreme material via a simple internet search – and some search terms are unambiguous – if people use them, they are looking for child abuse images.
The petition is aimed at Internet Service Providers – calling on them to install automatic family friendly filters. These filters block inappropriate material and will be installed automatically throughout the home, unless an adult chooses not to.
The petition was signed by hundreds of Ramsbottom residents – many of whom are parents or grandparents.
I would like to sincerely thank Councillor Ian Bevan and the residents of Ramsbottom for supporting this campaign.
If Ramsbottom residents would like to show their support for our campaign, they can sign the petition online at http://www.protectingourchildren.co.uk
David Nuttall 
I am glad that you are not aligned with those of your colleagues who pour such scorn on the ‘nanny’ state.
Although sometimes you have suggested that you might be ?
David,
were you not a bit queasy exploiting this issue for party campaigning purposes? Did you explain to the poor souls that you approached that this was a petition promoted by the Conservative party to get contact details so that you can bombard them with Ashcroft funded propaganda?
The web site you link to makes this clear. It says ‘sign the petition below’. It does not give the text of the petition. It does say in very very small print that “By entering your email address you agree to receive communications from us [the conservatiive party]”.
How many other tory MPs and candidates were also out this weekend doing the same thing as you? Did you send out a press release with a suitable party approved quote expressing how concerned you are and how much you care about children and how outraged you are with the ISP?
I suppose you can hardly be seen to be campaigning on local issues such as the Fairfield Maternity unit, because this time around no one will be able to believe a word you say.
Regards
Ewan