IS THE sexing-up of childhood, and in particular of pre-teen girls, a bad thing? Well, only a fool or perhaps a pervert would argue otherwise.

No one is going to jump up and say that they rather like seeing girls in fake push-up bras or ‘future porn star’ knickers, or whatever the latest regrettable trend might be.

This concern has been with us for ten years or so, possibly longer, but the debate has been freshened up thanks to David Cameron’s high-profile expression of distaste.

The Prime Minister appointed Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, to write a report on the “sexualisation and commercialisation” of childhood.

Mr Bailey published his conclusions this week, which included retailers being asked to place “lads’ mags” in brown paper bags, discouraging sexual-themed billboard adverts near to schools, giving an age rating to music videos, enforcing the watershed on TV, and setting up a so-called whistleblowers’ website through which parents will be able to report programmes, adverts or products they feel to be inappropriate.

A number of observations, to my mind, are stirred up by all this.

Firstly, Mr Cameron is a politician before he is anything else. The way this ‘independent’ report was commissioned begs certain questions, while Call Me Dave’s responses to the suggestions it contained raise others.

A report led by the boss of a Christian charity is hardly going to be independent, so that choice itself risks devaluing the findings. Isn’t that a little like asking the Methodists to ‘independently’ look into the alcohol industry; or wondering what the Quakers might make of the arms trade? Certain conclusions were inevitable.

For a moment, although he clearly believes what he says, it was hard not to see Mr Cameron as a man brushing from his mouth the crumbs of the cake he has just had and eaten.

By raising a matter of general concern, he appeared to be in touch and prepared to do things. Except that he isn’t, not really.

Mr Cameron’s response to Mr Bailey’s report appears to involve the customary shifty two-step, a forwards and back little dance number favoured by politicians.

While expressing his support for the findings, the Prime Minister appeared to reject any form of legislation. This was because of what Mr Cameron described, to quote words harder to keep hold of than a fish in a hurry, as his “long-held belief that the leading force for progress should be social responsibility, not state control”.

Ah, the bind of the progressive Conservative (if that’s what Mr Cameron is; opinions differ). He would like things to change, but he isn’t going to lay down the law because that would be what the other lot do. Instead of relying on what, elsewhere, he has called the “dead hand of the state”, he would, presumably, like us all to sort this out in a big-society sort of way.

Social responsibility comes from us all, I would guess, and that is not all bad. If no one produced or bought sexually inappropriate clothing for pre-teen girls, then the problem would go away.

The trouble is, society is a complicated playground, where there are many rules and regulations, alongside parallel desires and freedoms. Children live in the same society as the rest of us, and so cannot be cut off entirely from the sexualised commodity, long a staple of, say, pop videos and the like.

Someone should perhaps sort this lot out. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that Mr Cameron has any more of a clue than the rest of us.

Also, could he be suffering from a bad case of ‘parentisis’, a complaint in which the youngish father or mother becomes a mite obsessive about everything and anything to do with children?

As a father of three, I’ve been there, done that – and moved on somewhat, now that the little ones are little no more. And no, I never did have one of those ‘baby on board’ stickers on my car.

To conclude, society should take care to protect its young; it should also set great store by people of all ages, shouldn’t it?