Sometimes I wonder whether anyone can reverse the Nanny State tendencies so prevalent in this country at the moment. Even the Conservative Party is succumbing to them in a few areas. Take today's Sunday Times. These three stories appear on the first two pages.
Brown to curb second homes
Energy giants told to help poor or face a levy
Tories plan Alcopop taxes
Each of these initiatives, it can be argued, has honourable intentions. But the effect of all three is to increase the power of the State. All my instincts tell me that the electorate are beginning to cry out for a kind of politics which seeks to give meaningful power back to the individual and shrink the size of the State.
28 comments:
You missied out 'Green Dave's committment to 'wimmin'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/02/women.gender
agree with the second two, but surely some sort of regulated housing market is essential in a democracy? The whole point of the free market after all is to reward work (rather than capital growth), promote equal opportunities (as opposed to aristocratic values of old) and lead to utilitarian welfare as far as possible within a liberal, democratic and representative form of government.
I see restrictions on second homes as being all of these things.
Re second homes issue - Next steps:
- Permit required to buy your only / primary residence in the country
- Planning permission required to continue to live in your existing house. If said property deemed to be "under-occupied" then forced move to smaller property. Empty nestors to be compulsorily re-housed in "socially diverse" apartment block.
Meanwhile, on another planet, MPs continue with the privilege of owning second homes, paid for out of the £22,110 housing expenses funded by the "little people"
It's not so much the increase of the power of the state which sickens me as the removal of any kind of personal responsibility. The government delights in telling us what we shouldn't do for our own good (such as drinking). What happened to good old-fashioned looking after ourselves?
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"
Yes, the trend can be reversed but only by the political parties. But be prepared for a bloody battle.
The bureaucracy: the Civil Service, local government officials, the Health Service masters and the other agencies of the state welcome such initiatives with open arms seeking opportunities for expanding their control even further and will strongly resist any attempt to stop the train never mind reverse it.
After all, you don't think all those left wing hairy wimmen we all met at University in the 70s and 80s went away did you. They are now in positions of power and will use and abuse that power to achieve their perverted aims to control society.
We need a new Government, we also need a new administration
"What happened to good old-fashioned looking after ourselves?"
It's resulted in the rest of us avoiding the city centre to avoid being covered in vomit.
One has to be pragmatic, and sometimes government has to step in to try and prevent the rest of us from being affected adversely by the choices of a minority of others.
Moreover 2 of them are to ameliorate the bad effects of economicly damaging restrictions previously introduced. They are designed not to improve things, which could best be done by getting rid of the original restriction, but to pass the balme from government to a 3rd party.
The housing shortage is caused by the overwhelming planning restrictions which prevent builders building new houses. In a free market 2nd home owners would add to the supply of housing & provide jobs for the local community.
High electricityb prices are caused by government preventing the producers using the cheapest method (nuclear) & loading them with a "renewables obligation" which mandates they pay massive subsidies to favoured Luddites. The solution is not means testing for bills, which means the high price is merely put on fewer shoulders but allowing the electricity producers to work in a free market, which, since nuclear is being produced at 1.3p a unit, would certainly go for that option.
And yes Iain your implicit condemnation of the Tories for not, over many years, speaking out for freedom & low prices in both cases is fully justified.
southern jimmy said. raises interesting questions. The sort every planning committee in the land would simply love to have the power to ask.
I am afraid that Cameron must think through his policy idea's. I, alongwith a number of people, thought that his questions at PMQ's heralded a change. Yet with his alcopop idea and money for the nhs he is still thinking along the top down management style he says is yesterday's politics.
Returning power to the people must start on a local level. It must begin with local councils and councillors having real powers to act for the local people. In those area's where there are an over abundance of second/third homes to the detriment of local people, then perhaps local councils should have the power, as in the old days, to pass local Bye Laws which could restrict the selling of homes to 'outsiders' Or, even allow local councils to build new council housing.
If Cameron really believes in local democracy and power to the people. Then let him get amongst us. By visiting towns, cities, villages up and down our pleasant land. Experience the good, the bad and the plain ugly. Speak against multiculturism in those area's of this country that are no go area's for white people! ( I see the BBC are going to run programmes on White People! God I thought we didn't exist anymore!)
Let him say that it is the folly of central governments which have caused the problem. The problem can only be solved locally and that his central government would give grants to enable local councils to achieve greater local community cohesion. The alternative, sadly, will end in tears.
You Tory boys always want to have your cakes and eat them. All in favour of freeing up professionals to run schools and hospitals for example until perhaps one health authority produces different results to another (postcode lottery you bleat) or a set of governors and a head teacher start decreeing what can and can't be in lunchboxes (or, one might guess, if the teachers start teaching about social obligations rather than personal fulfilment).
It's all easy in opposition though isn't it?
Quite right, Iain, all three are cheap political gimmicks that curb our hard-won freedom. High time for a Tory gocvernment to reverse teh State's increasing encroachment into our everyday lives.
By the way, on the same theme, did you know that when Terminal 5 opens later this month, all BA passengers in transit will be forced to have their fingerprints taken and a digital photo taken, all in the name of 'security'. I myself experienced this on one of the recent public 'trials' designed to test the working of the building. Instantly all air passengers are criminalised. What's the point of that? And what's next? DNA swabs at checkin?
But the problem is too often the same people who are crying out for less state power; can be the same ones who are crying out for more state power.
Casinos for example?
A government should provide security; education and care (ie health & social services, pension etc).
Not a moral standard.. if I want to go and spend all my money in a casino. Off I go.
My moral standard comes from my family, not from a government.
Curbs on second homes - what is wrong with the following system:
Person A owns a house they wish to sell. Person B wishes to buy it. They agree a price. Person B hands over the cash to Person A, who in return hands over the keys to Person B.
Please tell me what business it is of the state to interfere in this transaction on the basis of how much property Person B already owns?
I seem to recall a 16yo boy, back in the distant days when he had hair, squeaking at the 1977 Tory party conference about "rolling back the frontiers of the State."
Who on earth could that have been? Nice bloke. Quite clever. Came from Yorkshire, but seemed almost housetrained nevertheless. Married a Welsh burd. His name escapes me. I wonder whatever became of him, and whether he still feels the same way about reducing state interference.
The Tories putting up taxes on alcopops is nothing new - Ken Clarke did it in his last budget.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1996/11/27/nbujd27.html
The root of the problem is the sheer size of Government. If you employ tens of thousands of civil servants much of their time will be spent devising new laws and regulations.
The remedy: Halve the size of the civil service. Those who remain will have less time to meddle.
Promising to create more legislation, rather than reducing it, will certainly affect my choice of party.
It's highly unlikely that there's anyone left who doesn't break at least law a day. Moreover, there's a nasty zeal with which the enforcers deal with people they nab, especially if there's a hint of compo involved.
If you transfer the real powers of government to other bodies, principally the EU, then you are left casting about for a justification for your existence. The void is filled with eye catching trivia that frankly is not the stuff of national politics.
To my mind these 'policies' are symptomatic of how far this country has declined. Can you imagine Lord Salisbury, Clement Attlee or Winston Churchill worrying about plastic carrier bags or chocolate oranges at the checkout?
Iain, you are so right about everyone being fed up with the bossy nanny state. I work in social care - and even the people I work with, virtually all of whom are left-leaning in principle, feel the same. There is huge resentment out there. The only ones who don't see it are the MPs - but if your snout's firmly in the trough, I suppose you can't see out.
Can this be the same Iain who wrote here about obliging people to tolerate fortnightly rubbish collections in places 'where public health issues are easier to police'? A flash of the cloven hoof, I thought at the time.
Alcopops ban! And don't forget the chocolate oranges at newsagents' checkout counters!
Halve them? Didn't a former cabinet secretary say that the civil service could run with 10% of the manpower it has now, and be more effective?
The question is, is it possible? I'm not sure whether anyone - not even Maggie or Reagan - ever succeeded in getting a long-term reduction in the number of people employed by the state.
Actually, it's certainly possible, but would require some pretty bloody-minded measures. The words 'root and branch' are screaming at us...
5:11 - I will write my own posts, thank you.
Also, thank you for your clumpingly obvious point. That is why I - not you - adopted the name The Chocolate Orange Inspector. Now bugger off and think up a name for yourself, you cheap little twerp.
So I can buy a house anywhere in the European Union, as can all European Union citizens, including anywhere in the UK.
That is except for UK subjects who need permission to buy in the UK.
It'll be allowances on how much money you can take 'abroad' next. Last time round under a Labour regime it was £50 a year.
I could not agree with you more ... or maybe not.
Alcopops ... a drink basically designed for housewives to get stoned on without any tell-tale trace of alcohol on the breath. A drink designed and sweetened to be without any of the normal alcoholic drink tastes - to be consumed, to be sloshed back like a 'pop'.
So maybe not such a bad idea. People, anti 'nanny state-ers', (and I despise the nanny state) will be suggesting that we drive on which ever side of the road we like next.
Browns comment on second homes is just party conference smoke and mirrors, if not then we will see people avoiding marriage or even getting 'divorced' in order to get the home(s) of their choice.
The key problem is that they can spew out as many laws as they like however compliance with the law is inversely proportional with the quantity and complexity of laws.
Take building regulations, a few years back they consisted of one A5 book, now there is a set of paperwork the size of war and peace involving regulations that require complex mathematics to work out compliance - the effect is that a culture of non compliance builds up - council, building inspectors can do little and the only real sanction is supposedly when you sell your home, however you can apparently buy indemnity against a compliance order for about £50 because such orders are so rare. [you couln't make it up etc. etc.]
The problem is that once a culture of non compliance builds up, it wont be just that the windows dont meet the new thermal insulation standards that didnt exist until recently or that there isn't an electrical certificate for the new plug in the kitchen that didn't need one anyway until 2005, a culture of non compliance will extend to foundations walls and loft conversions.
That is the real danger of too many regulations. That by generating a culture of non compliance they cause the things that really should be regulated to be ignored, putting us all in danger.
Hasn't the tax on alcopops become disproportionately low compared to beer and wine over the last ten years, because they're taxed as spirits, and in virtually every budget Brown gave us his hilarious party piece of a freeze on spirit duty to help the Scotch whisky industry?
Iain - I thought you wanted to ban plastic bags?
Please explain how that isn't nanny state, but the other three are?
The ban on second homes is completely unenforceable and is just another example of gesture politics. Though I'd happily ban the practice of allowing MPs to buy second homes at our expense. Reducing stamp duty/building more homes would help as would reducing the income tax paid by the lower paid. The real problem is that we have too many MPs and public officials with nothing to do so they spend their time dreaming up ever more ludicrous ways of interfering in our lives. We ignore them - we have to otherwise we'd go mad - and that is the way respect for the rule of law is eroded until we end up like the Italians but without their weather / joie de vivre etc., unfortunately.
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