Norman Tebbit, that Grumpy Old Politician, has been unpopular for most of his career because of his acerbic habit of telling it like it is. Apparently he still recognises that if you don't care what people think about you, that does at least give you the freedom to talk sense once in a while. This from the Daily Telegraph ...
Lord Beveridge, the architect of the postwar welfare state, was no fool. He saw the dangers, as well as the merits of a comprehensive welfare system. Sadly a lot of fools, or worse, did not listen to all of what he said. As he warned us, “The danger of providing benefits, which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration” is “that men as creatures who adapt to circumstances may settle down to them.”
He would be horrified at the extent of welfare dependency today. It is not just, as he put it, “men becoming habituated to idleness”. There is a growing army of men and women, whether in or out of work, dependent on the state (that is the taxpayer) for their living. They are not all at the bottom of the stack of society. An increasing number are in the £100,000 a year class, with pensions to match.
It seems to me that, as Beveridge instinctively understood, the most habit-forming, dependency-creating, narcotic substance known to man is the milk which flows from the collective breast of the taxpayers. The number of addicts is rising every year. Many are now hereditary welfare junkies, born of junkie parents into junkie families, trapped by the welfare pushers into the poverty trap. They are offered no way out of the trap. Work leaves them worse off, for that means they would be taxed to feed their own addiction.
The pushers, as in the trade of other narcotics, are mostly reliant on the taxpayers’ milk, too. Many of them are nice hand-wringing Guardianistas.
They would like things to be other than they are, but they could not afford it to be so. These are the upper class of those in dependency upon the taxpayer and they live a good life. Some will be found at Regional Government Conferences in agreeable parts of Europe. There those of high social standing as “executives” in local government (mostly reluctant to let the poor old milch cow know how much of its milk they imbibe).
Then there is the quangocracy. They are all part of the dependency culture, with priority in the queue to nuzzle into the (until now) ample bosom of the taxpayer.
They are not all worthless scroungers. Many work very hard at jobs which need not be done. Others do jobs which need to be done, carrying out the essential functions of the state, and it is those (like soldiers) who are most at risk of being shouldered aside in the great milk rush.
However, that milk is a dangerous substance. The destruction of the House of Commons owes much to its addictive and mind-bending nature. Last week Members of Parliament concluded that at this time of a soaring budget deficit and inevitable cuts in expenditure, the most important, the highest priority expenditure which must go ahead regardless of our straitened circumstances, was about half a million pounds for a Parliamentary crêche.
If Members of the House of Commons think that this should have priority over body armour for troops, or care for the sick and vulnerable, then surely it is them themselves who should be in the crêche.
Alas, I fear that over recent years so many of the middle classes have been seduced into public sector dependency and found it secure, well paid and comfortable place.
I wonder if enough of those turkeys will vote for an early Christmas on May 6?
Tebbitt's article excited a great deal of comment among Telegraph readers, much of extremely acrimonious. One of the more sensible contributions came from "Alfred" ...
But it is not just in Britain. Every time some ‘great’ policy is discussed, an array of groups chip in that we are funding through the EU or through the UN. It is government by QGOs these days (Quasi Government Organisations). Also it is worth looking at charities (another branch of QGOs) that comment on (i.e. push) policies in the UK, many of which are heavily funded by the tax payer.
The NHS alone grants some £17,604,642 annually to “Voluntary Organisations”. See the NHS’ “Section 64 General Scheme of Grants to Voluntary Organisations 2008-09: Newly approved grants and continuing grants”
Forget Parliament. That is no longer in charge.
Was it ever?
Many posters could not rise above the fact that previous Tory governments had made their own contributions to the mess that is Britain today. This is true, of course, but dredging up ancient history is hardly helpful. One even mentioned the Norman Conquest, as though that can cast any light at all on a discussion about the best way forward in the 21st Century!
Still, you can say this for it - almost the only thing that distinguishes us from every other Western so-called democracy is the fact that we have a very long history indeed, and still remember most of it (though not for much longer if our education system has any say in the matter). America has been a mess for what, a couple of hundred years?
We're still in the shit after two thousand!
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