Tories "silent" on the nanny state
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 
I am currently editing the manuscript for The Bully State: The End of Tolerance, a new book by Brian Monteith. The cover, left, has been designed by Dan Donovan who does a lot of work for Forest and designed the Save Our Pubs and Clubs logo (among other things).
Brian, as many of you know, was a member of the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2007. Before that he represented Forest in Scotland. The book will be published by The Free Society next month, after the Conservative conference in Manchester where Brian will be speaking at one of our fringe events (see below).
Writing in the Scotsman last month Brian had this to say on the subject of the Conservatives and the nanny/bully state:
The post-war welfare state has smudged the edges between freedom and liberty ... Since Labour came to power in 1997 there has been an inexorable growth in Britain's "nanny state" – so much so that the job description has been changed from nannying to bullying. We now have the bully state.
Before it was enough to try and alter people's choices. Governments would tell the public what was good for them and admonish people for making the "wrong" choices. But we ignored them – despite knowing that we are all mortal and that many of the pleasures of life, if taken in excess or even at all, are likely to lead to our premature death – we kept smoking, drinking, eating and relaxing in all the "wrong" ways.
The Conservatives have pledged to demolish Labour's plans for identity cards. It is a good start to reversing the trend but it should not stop there.
Those who, like me, believe we should be free to make the wrong choices so long as we pay for them ourselves want to see more from the Tories about how they will stop state bullying but the probable future government is strangely silent when it could be saying more.
Full article HERE.
Reader Comments (23)
Did not Cameron himself say "I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a Conservative" ?
Did he not also say that "A lot of good things have come out of Europe " ?
And wasn't the Tory Front Bench's MAIN charge against compulsory ID cards the COST ?
And yet, hasn't Cameron pledged to throw even more cart-loads of our money down the bottomless pit of an increasingly inefficient National Health Service ?
With such philosophical vacuities and contradictions as these, why would anyone imagine that Cameron and Co would do ANYTHING to even halt the advance of the Nanny State - let alone drive it into oblivion (where it belongs) ?
Sadly, it's becoming increasingly apparent that REAL Conservatives like Brian Monteith, Daniel Hannan, Roger Helmer et al have become an isolated minority within their own ranks.
"The New Conservatives - a Value-Free Party for a Smoke-Free Britain."
How about THAT for a campaign slogan, Mr Cameron ?
Should put some fire into the hearts of a tired Electorate............
The answer is simple - Do not vote for Blue Labour or you will get Blairism!
"you will get Blairism............."
No thanks, Pat !
I'm trying to give it up............
Then it's a shame it's being forced upon us by the so-called Conservatives
– despite knowing that we are all mortal and that many of the pleasures of life, if taken in excess or even at all, are likely to lead to our premature death –
Oh, give us a break, willya!
Yes, we're being told every day that absolutely everything we enjoy doing is killing us. But it's all a lie. And I for one don't believe it. Neither should you.
Trouble is a sizeable majority do believe it.
Every bit of it .
Sad.
I remember a chap I worked with ten years ago whilst I was, "avin a fag", by the carpark door he said,"codescendingly",You wanna give those fags up their bad for your health.
I pointed out to him that his portly frame was peobably worse,but respected his right to his opinion.
Three days later he collapsed and was rushed to hospital in a diabetic coma .
I think the problem is that most MP's are of ,"portly stature and live in a permanent ,"diabetic coma".
"Then it's a shame it's being forced upon us by the so-called Conservatives........"
No, Pat.
It's a National Tragedy................!
It's a 'shame' that Cameron didn't stay in Marketing.
Our people deserve something better than a new brand of anti-wrinkle cream:
"Because we're WORTH it."
PS:
You're right about the 'so-called' bit, though.
My analysis of the Tories is that, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher dragged Labour to the right, after being in power for so long Blair and Brown have dragged the Tories to the left.
Whether the nanny state remains on course, pause, or rewind after the general election remains to be seen. He is in the enviable position that he can take for granted Tory activists/supporters votes and is trying to appeal to the centre and centre-left ground. Although UKIP are taking chunks out of their votes.
I am told that Cameron has his public school clique which seems impervious to outside opinion, may be forced pre or post election to get back on track to true Conservative ideals. The good news is that most Conservative PPCs activists/supporters are anti nanny state, libertarian, free market anti EU. Dan Hannan and Roger Helmer are far more representative. Hence 58% of Tory supporters want an amendment to the smoking ban and 66% want tax relief on private health insurance.
With a 100 seat plus majority after 100 days Cameron may need to watch his back or plots might hatch.
I work with a young lady from Hungary and she is amazed that even though she thought, prior to coming here, that we in Britain had a freedom they do not have in Hungary, at just how restricted we are and in general how miserable we are. She says that at least in Hungary people are happy and able to have a drink and a smoke, if that is what they want to do! She and her husband are totally amazed at how depressed Britain is and is just happy that her homeland is nowhere near so bad!
"Dan Hannan and Roger Helmer are far more representative..........."
God, I DO hope so !
Dan Hannan - currently my favourite Irishman - is the most (not to say the ONLY) exciting thing about the Conservative Party at the moment. And he can write as well as he speaks.
He also displays that most un-Tory trait of Thinking About Things.
And he's got guts.
Cameron had better look to his laurels - and soon.
VERY soon..............
"It's a 'shame' that Cameron didn't stay in Marketing."
Martin V
It's a shame he didn't just stay in Mafeking, Martin.
Lyn,
I was speaking to someone from Czechoslvakia the other day who said exactly the same thing. I have been travelling around Europe this summer and the one thing everyone says to you is "How do you manage to still live in England?" They all seem to know how awful it is. The second you get back to Gatwick you can feel the horrible opressiveness of the place with it's cameras, armed, gum chewing police and officials everywhere making you feel like a criminal. It puts you in a bad temper straight away. I can't see things getting any better under any of our corrupt politicians so the future is looking bleak.
The above comments about the oppressive awfulness of things here now are (sadly) true.
And it severely undermines any moral authority we once might have had in the Councils of the World.
WHO would want OUR version of 'Freedom' today ?
It's embarassing !
No - it's heart-breaking.
If things don't improve soon, the Scarlet Pimpernell will be smuggling people OUT of England........and re-locating them in France (or Russia).
Blad -
Re:
"It's a shame he didn't just stay in Mafeking, Martin"
Don't you think that's a little unfair on the Boers (we don't need ANOTHER scrap with them, surely) ?
Simon and Lynn. I spent time in Hungary with a friend's relatives. They were absolutely shocked to hear about modern Stalinist Britain today - the same country they believed was the libertarian and fair model of the world.
When I explained about all the CCTV cameras, Govt control over the media, the smoking ban, and oppression of citizens in a whole host of ways, they were alarmed and disillusioned.
Hungary knows the true meaning of freedom and oppression. Ordinary people fought the Russians and were executed for trying to gain control of their own country in 1953.
Smoke haters or not, they know that the importance of the right of citizens to smoke in public is an important measure of how free a society is.
Simon
"The second you get back to Gatwick you can feel the horrible opressiveness of the place with it's cameras, armed, gum chewing police and officials everywhere making you feel like a criminal. It puts you in a bad temper straight away."
I have not travelled from or to Gatwick since the early 80's, but I do travel from Birmingham, if I really have to, and Bristol.
Birmingham is, in my opinion, the most disgusting flea pit of a place to arrive into; it makes you feel dirty and unwelcome, and that is before you reach passport control!
Bristil is a little better, but no doubt, as it grows, it will get worse.
You are absolutely right too, when you say that we are made to feel like criminals the moment we enter the airport, that is for departures or arrivals I feel.
Unfortunately it does not stay just in the airports, these are like a microclimate of what this country is like now, as a whole. Whether or not it is actually that bad is neither here nor there, the fact that so many people PERCEIVE it to be that bad, or worse, is what counts.
I had to laugh the other week, if I didn't I would have cried and am not sure if I could have stopped! The government said about the elections in Afghanistan that our troops were there in order to allow the Afghan people democracy. My first thought was shouldn't we get our own house in order first and bring back true democracy to this country so that we can lead the world in that direction, not just talk about it?
Lyn -
Re:
"The government said about the elections in Afghanistan that our troops were there in order to allow the Afghan people democracy......"
Democracy- like high-tar cigarettes - is for EXPORT only these days.
Not for the home market............(where it'd be bad for our health).
Lyn,
I came across a comment from someone who used to work in Russia which sums up the situation pretty well:
From 1980 (starting with the Moscow Olympics) to 1989 I worked in Moscow out of a small office at the Hotel National. I was employed by an Austrian Company and spent a few months of each year in the USSR. Long enough to get the “feel” of the status quo and absorb the general attitude of the population, as I worked with a lot of Russians from lowly pen-pushers and interpreters, to highest Ministerial level employees. I was always slightly relieved climbing onto a BA flight at Sheremetjevo Airport heading back home.
The point I’d like to make by this preamble is that I now get the EXACT SAME feeling of unease, disquiet and distrust of all things to do with police, judiciary, government, authority etc., from parking wardens, council employees, schoolteachers, right up to MPs.
Believe me people, once you have spent time in a Communist country you never forget “that” feeling. And when you come across it again in your own country you clearly recognise it. We are in it up to our necks
Simon, although I have not spent time in a communist country, I have had that feeling you talk about in the past few years here in the UK as well and it is downright scary!
Like you I would not trust the police an inch, out so called justice system is a joke, counsellors, politicians, MP's and their hangers on are all in it for what they can get out of it and sod the rest of us. Schoolteachers now preach to the kids and try to turn them against their parents if said parents drink, smoke or are obese and the remit seems to be to frighten the children into believing that their parents are likely to drop dead any second. Traffic wardens are nothing less than little hitlers and mostly they are power crazed individuals who have a little power but they need to prove it to everyone else so they weild that power like club!
Yes Simon, we truly are in it up to our necks and it is both a sobering and frightening revelation!
Simon, although I have not spent time in a communist country, I have had that feeling you talk about in the past few years here in the UK as well and it is downright scary!
Like you I would not trust the police an inch, out so called justice system is a joke, counsellors, politicians, MP's and their hangers on are all in it for what they can get out of it and sod the rest of us. Schoolteachers now preach to the kids and try to turn them against their parents if said parents drink, smoke or are obese and the remit seems to be to frighten the children into believing that their parents are likely to drop dead any second. Traffic wardens are nothing less than little hitlers and mostly they are power crazed individuals who have a little power but they need to prove it to everyone else so they weild that power like club!
Yes Simon, we truly are in it up to our necks and it is both a sobering and frightening revelation!
Apologies for that last comment appearing twice! Totally unintended.
Its frightening and a disgrace that we all feel the same awful unease that Simon and Lyn describe, as citizens in our own country. A country thats looked upon by others as 'first world'.
Tony Blair ruined Britain and he has a lot to answer for, as it all degenerated on his watch of the past decade that lead to this awful nanny state.
Why else did the guy have to change his religion, only to cope with the guilt when he was kicked out.
Changing ones religion tells a lot about a person's instability in my opinion.
He should never have opened britain's borders to the extent of making it a free for all, resulting in having no option but turn it into a mini Russia.
Because, like Russia, during the cold war when they ruled over eastern europe, rules, regulations, restrictions and bans had to be the order of the day to enable them to rule and command the different cultures under their regime.
Britain today in my opinion is like a mini version of what the EU is going to be like when its up and running, if the irish are stupid enough to ratify the Lisbon treaty.
Though strong rumour has it that if its a NO vote we'll be back to the drawing board again.
Welcome to the new Russia comrades!
There was an interesting comment by a young lady on Jonathan Dimbleby's 'Russia' series.
She'd had some experience of life in (what we used to call) The West - but felt 'more free' in Russia.
Says it all, really.
Douglas Bader might just as well have stayed on the ground.
Pleased with yourself, Tony ?
Ann -
The 'New Russia' ?
More like the 'New Albania' (minus the haircut police).