From the Conservative Poster Archive, poster 1929-31, “Socialism would mean inspectors all round”.
Conservative Poster 1929-31
Too true, unfortunately: see Harry Snook’s Crossing the Threshold - 266 ways the State can enter your home from the Centre for Policy Studies (PDF) and my related question in debate.
Today, I visited Jade and Jay, co-founders of Street Dreams to discuss their work in Wycombe’s deprived communities.
Steve and Jay, co founder of Street Dreams, discussing the Street Dreams Work Model
Too many people wrongly assume that Buckinghamshire is a utopia without social problems, but, as I have reported before, there is every reason to support good quality social action here. Jay and Jade explained how they help “disadvantaged, disengaged and disruptive young people to help them achieve a sustainable positive life”.
We discussed a wide range of issues from drug dealing and lack of parental support, to parental dependency on children, gang activity and imprisonment. The Street Dreams model to turn participants into volunteers and youth development workers promotes self esteem and programme sustainability, and I was delighted to find the team encourages entrepreneurship and sport.
We particularly discussed the operation of the third sector and I recommended the Centre for Social Justice report Breakthrough Britain: Third Sector and the Centre for Policy Studies paper A Step Change in UK Philanthropy. As the CSJ report says:
The war on poverty will only be won by liberating the third sector from the incessant pressure to do the government’s work in the government’s way. Innovative social entrepreneurs and grassroots projects need to be trusted and equipped to find new solutions to these intractable problems. It can be done.
At Street Dreams, as at The Oasis Partnership, the Lane End Oasis Centre and others, there is innovative social entrepreneurship happening in Wycombe: we must support it.
I am an Associate Member of the Centre for Policy Studies and I always enjoy reading their pamphlets: they remind me I am not alone. I caught up with the following four yesterday on the train. The theme? Putting humanity back into our society.
Click the images to download the pamphlets as PDFs.
The Reality Gap – an analysis of the failure of big government demonstrates that more government means worse. Jill Kirby writes of voter disenchantment and indicates that, in the EU elections, “Only one voter in 11 voted for the runaway winners, the Conservative Party”.
Jill provides and explores:
five techniques which have been deployed by the Government to create the appearance of success, while presiding over failure:
- Moving the goalposts
- Declaratory legislation
- Government as public relations
- Data collection
- Complex structures, procedures and language.
In particular, from the chapter Declaratory Legislation:
A 2008 survey by Sweet and Maxwell found that Margaret Thatcher’s Government introduced an average of 1,724 new laws every year. That rose to 2,663 under Tony Blair and in the first year of Gordon Brown’s regime the annual total reached 3,071.
This frenzied legislative activism can only be ignored by ordinary people. It puts me in mind of Jamie Whyte’s article Am I a Criminal? I haven’t a clue:
This Government has relentlessly undermined the rule of law by its vague legislation and constant meddling
Jill concludes that “The only answer is a significant reduction in state control” — I could not agree more.
Read more
The Centre for Policy Studies has released The 2009 Lexicon, A guide to contemporary Newspeak.
Some random examples:
Dialogue (meaningful): the pretence of genuine two-way conversation.
Equality: sameness. Absence of diversity.
Joined-up government: excuse for cross-departmental initiatives which will centralise and increase government intrusion into everyday life.
Radical (of reform): minor technical/organisational adjustment.
And so on.
It is recommended reading and yet, rather like the cartoon Dilbert, overdoing it might be unwise.
The latest publication from the Centre for Policy Studies arrived today: “Freedom for Public Services” by William Mason and Jonathan McMahon. Better services at lower cost, and more fulfilling jobs for public servants, are quite possible.
As ever, this CPS report is intelligent, brief, clear and insightful. The sheer scale of central regulation is shocking even as one who has begun to study the situation. Consider for example the list of regulators for the NHS:
Furthermore, healthcare professionals are individually regulated by, variously, medical schools, Royal Colleges, the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board, the General Medical Council and other professional organisations.
As you would expect, the paper makes a number of practical recommendations for simplification, efficiency and greater accountability in health and in the other public services, including the police, local government, schools and higher education. One summary point is particularly telling:
Central control is not working. Leading politicians of both main parties recognise that public services in the UK today are too large and complex for effective central management. In particular, David Cameron’s advocacy of the post-bureaucratic age is based on the premise that freedom of information can “make possible a new world of responsibility, citizenship, choice and local control.”
I recommend the report.
Graham reminded me how many people are now dependent on our deeply indebted state. For example, 1 in 5 of the UK’s whole workforce is in the public sector. They are net recipients of tax income, as are their children, if they are the sole breadwinner or their partner is also on the public sector payroll.
A while back, the CPS published Maurice Saatchi’s “Enemy of the People” covering this subject among others. It is prepared as a charge sheet:
Conspiracy to enslave United Kingdom citizens by making them unnecessarily dependent on the State (Count One)
Conspiracy to force United Kingdom nationals to claim benefits to pay higher taxes (Count Two)
Incitement of poor people to pay more tax than rich people (Count Three)
Solicitation of multiple tax revenues by stealth (Count Four)
Attempt to obstruct, interfere, impair, impede and defeat the right of United Kingdom nationals to independence (Count Five)
Conspiracy to provide material support and resources to mesmerise and anaesthetise United Kingdom citizens (Count Six)
Attempt to conceal and/or falsely represent their true status as an enemy of the people (Count Seven)
It includes such statements as this:
The evidence will show in Exhibit C1 that [reciept of benefits to pay tax] is how [Labour] vastly increased the percentage of people who are in receipt of State benefits or credits – up from 24% to 39% in ten years. The evidence will show that so far they made almost half the people in Britain economically beholden to the State.
