Nick Clegg’s grotesquely unfair “fairness premium”

So, in the middle of the bad news about cuts, all seemingly designed to leave the coping classes who keep this country going even less able to cope than before, that ineffably smug prat Nick Clegg gets to announce that “poor” children are to have an extra SEVEN THOUSAND MILLION POUNDS squandered on them.

So, the great Gordon Brown principle – that the way to solve social problems is to powerhose other people’s money at them – is alive and well and kicking at the very heart of this abysmal Coalition government: kicking those of us who haven’t taken other people’s taxes to pay for our children’s education, and have just heard they’ll have to fork out another fortune for their children’s university education, right in the teeth.

Thanks Dave. Thanks George. Great job.

And who can blame them? After all, the tsunami of taxpayer’s money already squandered – via swollen armies of bureaucrats and fancy equipment and legions of useless, silly, left-wing teachers all hell-bent on convincing little Wayne and Waynetta that their lack of achievement in basic literacy and numeracy are somehow the fault of people who know how to defer gratification – has certainly made a huge difference to the educational attainments and social skills of the offspring of the lowest 20% of society.

Here’s a prediction: when the children whom this mountain of our cash is supposed to benefit reach the age of 20, they will be no better educated and no better equipped to hold down a job or to bring up children than they would be if it had been spent – as it should be – on directly reducing the deficit. If anything, given the nature of the current education system, the extra spending will probably ensure that they’re actually less able to lead useful, productive lives than they otherwise would have been.

But by then, of course, universities will have been ordered to reject any candidate who doesn’t habitually use the word “innit” and can form a simple declarative sentence without the help of a team of experts.

To punish and discourage members of the class which tends to actually look after its children and makes sacrifices for them (and I don’t mean by buying them the  latest piece of electronic trash or by giving them enough money to get wrecked most nights of the week) while rewarding members of the class which (especially after thirteen years of the Blair/Brown Terror) often finds raising children a bit beyond them is so catastrophically stupid and counter-productive, my belief is well and truly beggared.

Why would you discourage the productive, responsible, well-behaved middle classes from having children while encouraging large numbers of feckless, unproductive people to have as many as they fancy because, after all,  someone else will  pay? That would be as dumb as discouraging people from saving for their retirement by keeping interest rates artificially low, or by encouraging inflation, or by removing tax-breaks for investing in pension pots – oh, hang on a second…

In what way, precisely, is this sort of wholesale redistribution of money from the middle class to the proletariat not rampant Communism?

And who, except some twisted, vicious left-winger who has never had to hold down a proper job in their life, would have the effrontery to describe yet another crude, immoral, doomed attempt at social engineering as a “Fairness Premium”? Orwell, thou shouldst be living at this hour…

The poor – just like the rich – fall into two categories: the deserving and the undeserving. We really need to figure out a way of encouraging the former - whom I revere, feel sympathy for, and don’t mind helping - while discouraging the latter, who, let’s face it, are beginning to get on our collective nerve. 

We also need to ensure that, when these beneficiaries of the taxpayer’s largesse reach adulthood, there’s still a decent middle class lifestyle for them to aspire to. (Unless, of course, they’re all supposed to turn into Premiership footballers or X-Factor winners or politicians or bankers.) Otherwise, what’s the bloody point of it all?

I was going to suggest that the current crop of Tories have now proved themselves to be class traitors - except, of course, their leaders tend to be Old Etonians these days, so stabbing those of us below the salt in the back probably counts as good sport. Can you imagine Thatcher or Tebbit sanctioning anything this deranged?

And all to buy off a bunch of pathetic, spiteful, deluded, pointless LibDem backbench pygmies.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt say it again - anyone fancy a Tea Party?