"Our money, their compassion" - our all or nothing politicians

Even a grumpy old right-winger like me can see there’s a need for a benefits system to prevent people dying in the streets. Because so many Britons are now unemployable, we need to allow in some immigrants. Lending a helping hand to people who can’t work because of illness or disability seems a civilised thing to do.

I’m happy to sign up to a whole slew of other liberal-seeming propositions. Suspects in criminal cases need some rights to prevent the police fitting them up. And people who’ve been convicted of a crime need to be allowed to appeal if fresh evidence casts doubt on their original conviction. We need to co-operate with the rest of Europe, because it’s a huge market for our goods and services. Abortions are sometimes necessary, and occasionally a positive good. Anything that makes homosexuals stay together in stable relationships is to be welcomed. Once upon a time, police and nurses did seem to be underpaid – what sort of miserable Scrooge would begrudge them a decent pay rise? As for sexism and racism – well, isn’t curbing the open expression of ugly and humiliating prejudice really just a reasonable attempt to foster the courtesy that Britain used to be noted for?

But after politicians have got us to acquiesce to these reasonable-sounding propositions, they take them away, work them up into a set of universal rules – and we suddenly discover we’ve signed up to a ruinously expensive and socially destructive disaster which adversely affects the lives of everyone who isn’t a direct beneficiary of the changes.  

Why does our nomenklatura insist on treating these issues – which seem to demand a careful, incremental approach in order to flush out all the likely consequences - as if they’ve taken leave of their bloody senses? Why not a few immigrants, a bit of curbing, a bit more pay, some measure of co-operation with our trading partners? Why is it all or nothing every time?

We have a welfare system that certainly prevents anyone from starving to death. But it also gives lazy buggers who can’t be arsed to make an effort the green light to sponge off the rest of us. We pay disability allowances to perfectly healthy people who are stealing our money instead of bothering to work. We’ve given criminal suspects rights that victims can only dream of – and we’ve allowed some of the most evil beasts in the country to tie up the courts with ridiculous claims that their “human” rights are being violated because they’re not called “Mister” in prison, or because the state doesn’t allow them access to the internet so they can send hateful, jeering messages to the relatives of their victims. 

We should have allowed in only those immigrants who showed some ability and willingness to pay for themselves and to become useful, integrated members of society: instead, we opened the floodgates to welfare scroungers and active criminals as well – often from countries with absolutely no historical or cultural ties to Britain.

Instead of simply having trade agreements in place with the rest of Europe – all that was actually needed -  we’ve handed Brussells control of practically every aspect of our lives. We’re now the bitches of some boring, unelected little Belgian twat and a dodgy looking failed politician from Portugal. 

We’ve given homosexuals the right to form civil partnerships – and now our ridiculous nincompoop of a Prime Minister is simply gagging to allow them to marry. Is that really necessary? Or desirable? With the world facing financial Armageddon, why is that suddenly a priority? Just because of the Pink Vote? Is Cameron really that creepy, that little?

And abortion – instead of being a last, desperate recourse – is now a back-up service for people who couldn’t work up sufficient energy or foresight to buy a prophylactic.

And the minute we started paying nurses and police officers a decent salary, they promptly stopped doing any nursing or policing in order to concentrate on spurious “degree” courses and paperwork.

And our attempts to foster courtesy and fairness to women and non-Nordics and gays have created a climate of fear in which, as I write this post, I’m having to weigh every word in case I’m unwittingly breaking the latest laws against thought crime, and where every employer who tries to get rid of somebody criminal or useless finds themselves hauled in front of an industrial tribunal run by left-liberal fruit-loops. 

So why do we sign up to reasonable-sounding proposals – only to find ourselves being robbed blind or in danger of arrest as a result of our generous impulses?

First, politicians like to make grand gestures which indicate that they’re visionary, bold, liberal and deeply, deeply compassionate. Having enjoyed their feelgood moment in the sun, they then move swiftly on to the next headline-grabbing cause, having failed to ensure that structures are in place to prevent the system they’ve championed being abused. Politicians are only too happy to make the rest of us conduct risk assessments – but don’t trouble to carry them out when it comes to their own pet projects. (Remember, there were only supposed to be 15,000 Eastern European immigrants – the figure’s now crawling up towards the million mark.)

Oddly, when the consequences of boldness are more than likely to prove beneficial – for instance, lowering taxes and cutting red tape for businesses would undoubtedly lead to economic growth  - our rulers come over all cautious and “prudent”. But when the consequences are more than likely to prove disastrous – for instance, getting rid of the planning rules, or introducing economically ruinous   policies to combat “Climate Change” when there’s still huge questions over the basic science – our politicians suddenly come over all General “Blood and Guts” Patton. 

As for the civil service, they evidently now see their sole duty as being to prevent any vaguely right-of-centre policies being implemented while ensuring that any unproven, half-arsed scheme which hasn’t been properly costed, and which carries the risk of a whole series of unintended consequences, gets onto the statute books as quickly as possible.

To paraphrase a remark about General Patton made by one of his soldiers – “Yeah – our blood, his guts” – when it comes to our politicians, it’s a case of “Yeah - our money, their compassion”.