Its Prime time for Brown to listen to you

So it’s not without irony that, in the week the Government finally reaches out to the industry, this pejorative description perfectly encapsulates the rhetoric on games we’ve come to expect from Parliamentary figures.

You know the chumps I’m talking about. Boris Johnson spitting out ill-informed nonsense about how PlayStation is rotting our kids’ brains” over his foie gras. Or pantomime enemy Keith Vaz blaming us for, well, everything – marching on with his ridiculous crusade of chasing ambulances whilst screeching, It were the games wot done it!” to any newspaper desperate enough to listen.

But Gordon Brown has actually started to press the right buttons with this inquiry. Promises of no censorship? Talk of educating parents? Did someone slip him a DS or something?

His henchwoman, TV’s Dr. Tanya Byron, wants the industry to email her with suggestions on what Parliament can do to ensure parents take BBFC ratings seriously. And, let’s be honest, we could all do with some help in educating the sort of blundering parent who allows little Tommy to tinker with Bioshock all night – and then wonders why he’s belligerent with his Coco Pops in the morning.

Her email is byron.review@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk.

Idiots are sending her messages now. Slating you. Telling the most powerful people in the land that kids’ access to violent material is all your fault.

Let’s give her some truth. And ensure that next year’s report gives credence to just how well-regulated we are. If it ends up as ‘Death By PlayStation’-lite, we’ll only have ourselves to blame.