Brown and Cameron in angry clash over probe into baby’s death

BRITISH prime minister Gordon Brown voiced outrage yesterday at the brutal abuse of a baby boy and a local authority’s failure to spot his fatal ordeal, as the case escalated into a political row.

The child — identified only as Baby P — was 17 months old when he died in a blood-spattered cot in August last year, having spent much of his life being used as “a punchbag”.

Social workers, police and health professionals failed to save him despite 60 visits over eight months, during which time he suffered more than 50 horrific injuries.

The local authority — Haringey Council in north London — is the same one that failed to stop the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie, in another child abuse case that similarly shocked the nation in 2000.

“I believe I speak for the whole country that people are not only shocked and saddened, but horrified and angered,” Brown said in stormy exchanges with opposition leader David Cameron.

“This tragedy that has arisen because of violence and torture of a young child, where three have already been found guilty, raises serious questions that we have to address.”

An urgent, nationwide review of child protection services has been ordered.

The toddler’s 27-year-old mother and two men, one of them her 32-year-old boyfriend, have been found guilty of causing or allowing his death.

Earlier, Cameron repeatedly demanded the prime minister withdraw his remarks after he was accused by Brown of “playing party politics” over the death of Baby P. The furious row erupted after Cameron denounced the internal inquiry being carried out by Haringey Council into the child’s death as “completely unacceptable”.

He said the London borough’s head of children’s services Sharon Shoesmith, who was leading the inquiry, could “not possibly investigate the failure of her own department”.

Brown insisted the council’s executive report had already accepted there were failings in the system and that children’s secretary Ed Balls would decide what steps to take next in relation to the council.

But the prime minister became increasingly irritated as Cameron continued to press the point: “I don’t expect an answer now, you never get one.”

Brown replied: “I do regret [his] making a party political issue of this issue because I think the whole country shares the outrage...”

Cameron retorted: “I think what the prime minister said just now is, frankly, cheap.

“I asked some perfectly reasonable questions about a process that is wrong and I would ask the prime minister to withdraw the attack that that was about politics.” Brown responded by suggesting there was “common ground” on both sides of the House and they should try to “maximise” their areas of agreement.

A furious Cameron turned on Brown: “You accuse me of party politics about this...” addressing the prime minister directly, in breach of the normal Commons convention that all remarks are addressed to the speaker. Amid uproar, the speaker struggled to restore order.