THE CANNY STATE

In Britain’s ‘Fair’ Land, we are all FREE to smoke, drink and (or) eat ourselves to a comprehensive state of ill-health. All three delights can damage the most vitally functional parts of the body, leading to chronic sickness. Thereafter - WITH THE BLESSING OF FREE CARE – a slow, government-funded decline into helplessness is ‘afforded’, before an ignominious, state-begrudged, death. How fortunate we are!

On the face of it, one might think a caring government would view our damaging dysfunction with concern – but suppose the caring face of government is a mask? PERISH THE THOUGHT. Governments’ first concern is always POWER. (Quite so! It must be won, and held on to, if caring is to proceed!) The voters can always be induced to vote for a party that meets (or pledges to meet) their needs and wants. Free medical care is now an established ‘need’, in the mind of the electorate, while booze, fags, fat and sugar are ‘wants’. Politics could not be simpler.

The term ‘Nanny State’ is hurled at any suggestion of our excesses being state-curbed. Odd – I thought archetypal nannies were firm but FAIR, and FAIR is the ‘new black’! And what of the over-indulgent GRANNY State, giving us all excessive pocket money (debt) and taking us to Tescos as a treat? Granny has the latest, monster TV (HD digi) and lets us stay up until exhausted, watching mind-bending trash. SHE HELPS US BECOME UNWELL yet goes un-perceived. Needless to say: the Granny State, is a Wicked Step Mother in disguise. During ‘sleep-overs’, she drains our soul and sells it down the river, using the money gained to provide policing of the marauding ‘Have-nots’, and funding for the ubiquitous ‘NSS’* – free at the point off nihilism. (*National Sickness Service.)

Parties are not slow to hire the most Machiavellian of advertising agencies, and to apply their nefarious skills, at election time, to the business of gaining power. Governments could choose to use the same approach in turning the citizens away from self-destructive pursuits. Crime, sickness and social decay would reverse. Skilled avoidance of the ‘Nanny State’ label, would allow us ordinary folk to convince ourselves that WE HAD CHOSEN to improve (such is the cunning of the advertiser). This would reinforce the new behaviour. But where would this leave the politicians? Funding the NHS would cease to be a vote-winner, as would crowing over extra police. In short: POLITICAL DISASTER! All they would have left, to flamboyantly fund, is EDUCATION (so called) and that is about to blow up in their faces - from too many heavily-funded initiatives (and a surfeit of Balls).

In summary: British governments tax human degradation, then spend the money in high profile initiatives that can, at best, only restore the original situation. The Canny state is a can of worms.