IT IS bad. Very bad.
And it’s excruciatingly, bitterly sad.
You know, of course, to what I refer.
The killing of little Rhys Jones.
Like millions of others I was blinded by tears as I listened and watched his mum and dad bare their souls on the television news about the unspeakable act of evil which ended the life of their precious lad.

Considering the deep well of sorrow they've been hurled into by the events in Croxteth on the evening of Wed 22 Aug, 2007, Melanie and Stephen Jones came across with great dignity and eloquence in that TV appeal.
And if there is one – just one – good and humane thing to emerge so far from this awful business, it is the outpouring of sympathy and solidarity directed at Rhys’s parents and wider family.
Call it a giant wave of love, if you like, because that’s what it is.
All decent people want the killer of young Rhys found and brought to justice.
And justice is what we need now, not vengeance.
Now, I do not mind hearing or reading the thoughts of policemen and priests at a time of such an act of evil as this one.
And I think there is real benefit, actually, in witnessing the heartfelt sadness and sympathy expressed for this 11-year-old, football-crazy lad whose life was so snuffed out by a young person with a gun.
It reminds us that despite the random acts of wickedness that can shake us to the core, the vast majority of people are good. They care about their fellow humans. They respect life.
However grim things appear, however cruel the hammer blows some people receive, the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the people of Earth.
What I don’t particularly value, however, is the outpouring of carefully-crafted condolence and calls for “something to be done� that issue from the lips of politicians at times like these.
Particularly, I am not impressed by the leader of Liverpool City Council, Cllr Warren Bradley, issuing a knee-jerk call for a “summit� of people from the major cities with the Home Secretary to tackle gun crime.
The suggestion of a summit (i.e. another talking shop) to solve gun crime was rendered particularly pointless by Bradley when I heard him on BBC Radio Merseyside saying there’d already been too much talking and not enough action on gun crime.
So what is the councillor’s idea of action? A summit. More talking. Pathetic.
And it was with tedious inevitability that the national politicos rushed out their thoughts on the slaying of Rhys.
The Prime Minister said it was “a heinous crime that shocked the whole country�. That’s true, but all the same, as a politician who served a Government that's turned our former police forces into politically correct, social issues-obsessed and public-relations-chasing branches of the social services, I still wish he’d shut up.
I wish all the politicians would keep quiet on these occasions of shocking, violent crime, because it is their ineffectiveness, their relentless undermining of the family, and their failure to provide decent state education, that has created such fertile breeding ground for feral, immoral, drug-abusing, gun-toting youths.
Are you listening, David Cameron, or are you too busy hugging a hoodie?
Well, as I say, I don’t mind cops and priests having their say at times like this. It seems appropriate, somehow.
But on Thursday, I faced a personal dilemma over whether to say anything myself about the killing of Rhys.
Thursday evenings, you see, is when I finish writing and recording a review of the week’s news in poetry form for broadcast on Friday mornings on BBC Radio Merseyside’s Breakfast programme.
I decided, that as this was a huge news story as well as a personal tragedy for the Jones family, I couldn’t really ignore it. But nor did I want to intrude on their grief.
Here is what I wrote at the end of my poem. Here is what the listeners heard…

“And finally, God bless the soul of little Rhys Jones
Shot in Croxteth. Dead, aged eleven. A nation moans
In horror, in solidarity, in pity.
How can this happen? Why Rhys? And why in our city?�

For what it is worth, let that be my expression of sympathy, along with the countless others, for the boy, his family, and for the city of Liverpool, which is yet again experiencing a harrowing event.

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