No matter how crucial the board meeting, how vital the negotiation, how pressing the deadline, there is one excuse which can justify your absence and which no-one, nowadays, will dare to question.

Simply explain that it’s your child’s first nativity play/violin solo for the school orchestra/sports day and your absence is not just understood. It’s required.

Should your colleagues find out that you’ve missed this landmark occasion in your son or daughter’s childhood they won’t just express surprise. You’ll find yourself a pariah.

We clutch at these moments in our time-poor Western lifestyles as episodes when we can put our commitment to those closest to us ahead of the self-absorption of work. But they also matter, crucially, because they are milestones in our children’s journey to self-confidence and independence. They are landmarks in the construction of their character.

Just over a week ago the BBC screened some footage from a similar landmark episode in the life of some girls in a Middle Eastern school.

Beautifully turned out, and with faces shining, the children sang a carefully prepared anthem for their parents, friends and relatives. But the lyrics committed to heart by the girls of the al-Khalil al-Rahman Young Girls’ Association sat a little incongruously with the innocence of their appearance.

“We all sacrifice ourselves for our country,” they sang. “We answer your call and make of our skulls a ladder to your glory. A ladder.”

The song was recorded for a Panorama special presented by the veteran BBC reporter, John Ware. Ware was investigating how donations to the charity Interpal, which is dedicated to helping Palestinians in need, had been spent.

Interpal exists to support widows, orphans and others in need in the Palestinian territories. And no-one can deny that there is desperate poverty among Palestinians, which touches many hearts. But Ware’s painstaking work suggested that some of the institutions which benefit from that generosity are linked to the terrorist organisation, Hamas.

Interpal says that it is politically neutral in the collection and distribution of its funds, and that it has twice been investigated by the Charity Commission, which found that the organisation had no links to terrorists. Interpal has also won an apology and retraction from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, acknowledging that it is not a terrorist organisation.

But in the course of Ware’s investigation we saw young girls dancing to music which proclaimed: “Fasten your bomb belt, oh would-be martyr, and fill the square with blood so that we get back our homeland.”

Ware also aired serious allegations that Interpal is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide organisation dedicated to establishing a politicised form of Islamic fundamentalism. We saw the spiritual head of the Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguing that “we must plant the love of death and the love of martyrdom in the Islamic nation”. And we also saw the Sheikh being embraced by Ken Livingstone on a recent visit to London.

I mentioned Ware’s Panorama on this page briefly last week, and felt no need to go into detail because I expected that the nature of his allegations would lead to further investigation and inquiry from people better placed than me to ask what was being done in the name of charity. But there has been next-to-no follow-up on his investigative work.

The Charity Commission has acknowledged that its past investigations into Interpal have not been “in depth”, and it is to be hoped that they now take Ware’s allegations seriously.

But the responsibility to act doesn’t end there. Interpal’s Chairman, Ibrahim Hewitt, was a member of the Government’s own taskforce on preventing extremism. He has also sat on the national council of George Galloway’s Respect Party.

At a time when conflict rages in the Middle East and we all pray for the violence to end, it is more important than ever that we consider how these things start.

It is natural, in a time-pressured world, where we scarcely have a moment to enjoy with our own families, to believe that all one can do in the way of helping to end the suffering is simply to join the chorus demanding a ceasefire.

But don’t we owe our children, and the children of the Middle East, a few moments more reflection and questioning? What are the chances of a lasting peace when young girls are taught to celebrate suicide bombings in kindergarten? And what are we going to do about it?

Guilty pleasures? I plead not guilty

Q magazine, the journal of choice for people who take pop music more seriously than it can ever deserve, has just published a list of 50 “guilty pleasures” — songs which its readers love but don’t dare admit to enjoying.

The Top Ten are: 1. Livin’ Thing - ELO; 2. More Than A Feeling - Boston; 3. Don’t Stop Movin’ - S Club 7; 4. I’m Not In Love - 10CC; 5. Rock ‘n’ Roll Part 2 - Gary Glitter; 6. Cold As Ice - Foreigner; 7. Rebel Yell - Billy Idol; 8. Whatever You Want - Status Quo; 9. Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty; 10. I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor.

I don’t know about you, but all I can say is: “What’s to feel guilty about?” Both Livin’ Thing and Baker Street are superb songs which will be played long after Chris Martin and Damon Albarn are dust.

It’s typical of a certain sort of (male) music fan — the Nick Hornby/Mark Lamarr type — that the adolescent desire to transmit coolness through one’s record collection persists into middle age. But music is there to be enjoyed: it isn’t something to be controlled by the style police. Besides, any list which has The Proclaimers as a guilty pleasure (there at number 40) just has to be fatally flawed.

The last word

Tommy Sheridan’s libel victory will be good news for Scrabble fans everywhere. Tommy made much of the fact that his fondness for the game was his only vice, and that a love of triple-word scores made him an improbable lothario. But does a love of wordplay preclude a playful libido? I think Dr Thomas Stuttaford should tell us urgently . . .

• The writer is Conservative Party MP for Surrey Heath

Times Recommends

• It’s the beginning of the affair
• Afghanistan: still a price worth paying
• Heroes of the downtrodden