Make no mistake, the nanny state is upon us - Labour is changing our culture for the worse - Kwasi Kwarteng
"Like a deranged Mary Poppins, the government believes that banning smoking outside is reasonable," says Kwasi Kwarteng
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Sir Keir Starmer has revealed his character in power. He comes across as a stern headmaster. You can see him with a mortar board on his head, exerting authority and trying to seem tough.
His party, in less than two months, has hiked up public sector pay, at the same time as complaining about how short of money we are and threatening tax rises. People I talk to who remember say, “We are heading back to the 1970s”. Strikes, high taxes, zero growth. We have seen this all before.
What is new is the air of moral superiority that Sir Keir and his team exude. While Angela Rayner was partying in Ibiza last week, the Labour government leaked details about a proposed smoking ban in outside areas of pubs which will be the death knell of the industry.
The bans are not the act of a headmaster, though. They remind me of a domineering nanny. Nannies look after small children. They assume they know best and simply cannot allow the small children to determine their own lives.
This isn’t to say the Tories were much better. Before the election, Rishi Sunak suggested a smoking ban for people born after January 1, 2009. As an MP I knew I would never vote for this in the House of Commons.
There seemed to be two main objections to Sunak’s proposal. Firstly, it would be unenforceable. It’s hard enough to stop underage people in their teens from buying cigarettes. But enforcing a ban when the relevant people are in their thirties and forties seems impossible, if not ridiculous.
Secondly, when you ban things, you are simply encouraging more criminality by incentivising gangs to sell illegal products. Look at prohibition in America. Banning the sale of alcohol simply encouraged criminals to obtain and sell the product illegally.
Prohibition in the United States during the 1920s simply opened the door for the mafia.
Of course, for a morally superior Labour Party, none of this history means anything. Nanny knows best. Like a deranged Mary Poppins, the government believes that banning smoking outside is reasonable.
They are, according to this view, simply offering protection for the majority by taking away freedoms from a minority.
Mary Poppins always knew best, but that was fiction. It’s genuinely concerning that a government can proceed on this basis. The nanny state, accelerated by the COVID-era lockdowns and shutdowns, is upon us. Make no mistake. The government is committed to a whole range of policies which may well change our culture for the worse.
Smoking bans, a net zero-driven withdrawal from North Sea oil and gas production, hiking up taxes on private education, the hint of wider tax increases, the criminalisation of “extreme misogyny”- all this has been signalled in only the last few weeks. The election, after all, was barely two months ago.
Misogyny in all its forms is demeaning and wrong, but to criminalise “extreme misogyny” makes no sense. Will that include the criminalisation of effectively forcing women to wear hijabs or burqas?
This Labour government should be taken seriously. There is always the impression that many at the top of Labour don’t like Britain very much. The British people, according to many in the Labour Party, are too ill-disciplined, too “racist” and too “misogynistic”, to be allowed to get on with their lives.
Much better, as far as they are concerned, for the nanny to step in and set them on the right path. This attitude is condescending and wrong.
More particularly, Sir Keir said his government would “tread more lightly on your lives”. That was barely two months ago. His government is now doing the opposite. They are creeping into every nook and cranny of our lives.