Smacking your kids in the news again, someone wants to ban it.

As the stepfather of two teenagers and father of a nine year old, this is something that exercises me less than it used to - I was a real zealot when I was seven, let me tell you. But I just love listening to the arguments - the childless, right on lefties who have never faced a screaming tantrum telling us how to be parents and the floggers who live in a wondrous dreamworld where it possible to hit a child with a "loving smack".

The uncomfortable truth that many parents realise is that it never feels right to do it, but by God it works.

Personally, I am pleased to say I have only ever smacked out of anger and frustration.