Freedom and the welfare state

Wednesday May 28, 2008

If we really want to roll back the nanny state, says Mark Littlewood, it’s time to take responsibility for our own actions

Barely a day now passes without media hysteria about how some human indulgence is causing the moral, social and economic collapse of Britain.

We’re all eating too much fatty foods – and so are our kids. Unless we desist from our Mac-addiction to burgers and fries, we’ll all be the size of elephants within a generation. If we haven’t died of heart disease first.

Smoking cigarettes is such a no-no that those of us who enjoy a puff now huddle as pariahs on street corners. Our packs of fags may soon contain colour pictures of diseased hearts and lungs. (I intend to collect the set.) We are so weak-willed that Dawn Primarolo suggests that, in future, we will have to furtively buy twenty Marlboros under the counter.

The logic appears to be that the shimmering, glittering packets elegantly stacked at our local newsagents are just too much to resist. Magpie-like, those, who would otherwise never dream of smoking, just can’t help making a grab for the shiny, gold packets. Only the enlightened Dawn and her team of eager bureaucrats can save us from such exploitative temptations.

New target

And the new target of choice for New Labour is booze. Apparently, we’re a nation of compulsive alcoholics. Many of us dare to defy the recommended weekly allowance. We’re condemning ourselves to an agonising death from cirrhosis of the liver. We’re also contributing to rising crime, juvenile delinquency and overcrowded hospitals. Clearly, we need the nanny state to come to our aid. Partly for our own benefit but also – crucially – to protect the children.

Only a couple of weeks ago, Natasha Farnham caught the attention of the nation’s press by being the youngest person in Britain – aged 14 – to suffer from alcohol-related liver damage. By the age of 12, she was apparently knocking back six bottles of wine per day, washed down with a litre of vodka. I didn’t know whether to cry or applaud. Young Natasha could certainly drink me and my hard-drinking friends under the table effortlessly.

But what made me angry was the unchallenged, flagrant abandonment of responsibility by her mother, Michelle (and probably by Natasha’s father too, although he is not mentioned at any point in any of the press coverage I have seen).

Mrs Farnham was pretty clear where the blame lay for her daughter’s condition. And it certainly wasn’t at her door. She’d only started to realise there might be a problem when her daughter turned a funny shade of yellow and was rushed to hospital.

Common sense

Now, I don’t consider myself to be any kind of medical professional, nor an expert in alcohol-related illnesses, but I’d like to think I’d have the basic common sense to realise my daughter might be hitting the bottle a bit too hard some considerable time BEFORE she developed a mustard coloured complexion and needed the urgent assistance of paramedics.

Forty-year-old mum, Michelle, seemed to be oblivious, careless, ignorant – or probably all three. And she thinks she’s worked out the root cause of her daughter’s descent into alcoholism. With the deductive powers of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, she concludes that Natasha’s drinking started “around the time that alcopops were being advertised”. Case closed.

I’m not sure who is in charge of the alcopops advertising drive. But I hope they didn’t get paid a penny. Because Natasha started drinking high-strength cider and then moved on to wine and vodka. If my living depended on selling alcopops, I’d be furious. If the adverts had any impact at all, it seems to have been to encourage people to buy a competitor product.

Of course, the real question that needs answering is how a TV advertising campaign could possibly have as much impact on a young person as the discipline, guidance and attention that one would expect from any remotely responsible parent. But that doesn’t suit the media narrative. Big booze companies make much better “baddies” than dim-witted parents.

Personal freedom

Those who cherish personal freedom – including the freedom for adults to engage in staggeringly self-destructive behaviour – have much to be pessimistic about. The political establishment will forever see a need to launch new initiatives and programmes and to assert that “something” must be done.

Vast swathes of the population seem addicted to infantilism. In a dreadfully depressing way, it suits them psychologically to shift blame for their plight to others – however unreasonably – and responsibility for finding a solution to the state – however ineffective.

Liberals and libertarians need to be aware of – and address – the elephant in the room. The onward march of the nanny state is in part due to busybody do-gooding politicians and a supine civilian population. But only in part. The unpalatable truth is that the welfare state is programmed with an inbuilt, possibly unintended, mechanism to expand exponentially – not just in terms of soaring medical bills and accelerating social security and pensions payments, but also into areas of our lives that welfarists need to manipulate and control if the social democratic model is to remain intact.

Essential premises

If the essential premises of the welfare state – universal healthcare free at the point of use from cradle to grave and the education of children paid for and controlled by the state – continue to go unchallenged then as night follows day, our own lifestyle choices will be abdicated to the state too.

Unless individuals are obliged to bear direct personal financial responsibility for their own actions, the state will inevitably seek to ban – or at least deter – activities that lead to increased public expense or diminished revenues.

If we really want to roll back the nanny state, we need to tackle the cosy, welfarist consensus that gives rise to it. Otherwise, we will continue to find ourselves up to our necks in mud and water shooting the alligators. When what we really need to do is drain the swamp.

Mark Littlewood, former head of media for the Liberal Democrats, is communications director of the classical liberal think tank Progressive Vision

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Progressive Vision