Posted on 01/25/2011 2:21:03 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
“To be born an Englishman,” Cecil Rhodes once claimed, “is to win first prize in the lottery of life.” These days, Mark Steyn says the prize goes to Americans, and whenever I think of Westminster, I can’t help thinking he might be on to something.
Our supposedly centre-Right Government supports a plethora of Left-liberal causes (such as EU membership and global warming taxes) and favours a Big Society where – for unclear reasons – government is also big. Across the Pond, however, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives is flowing over with radicalism, voting only last Wednesday to abolish ObamaCare.
So why the big difference? Well, our lack of open primaries has effectively allowed party machines to disenfranchise their grassroots supporters. Take the case of foreign aid. The high level of expenditure on “international development” irritates voters, especially Tories. What’s more, there is overwhelming evidence that it suppresses poor countries’ economic growth. Yet our Conservative-led Coalition is determined to increase it. Massively.
The Republicans aren’t so naive. Their Republican Study Committee (a policy unit serving 165 Republicans in the House) has a plan to cut waste in USAID’s budget. It says that $1.39 billion could be saved. The total budget, by the way, is $1.65 billion.
Now I can’t see our Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, agreeing to a similar proposal here. His job is to prevent the do-gooders and busybodies at Christian Aid and the World Development Movement – who, frankly, are unlikely to ever vote Tory - from criticising the Government. But at over £9 billion a year, Britain’s aid budget is an expensive bit of appeasement. If Mitchell stood in an open primary – like Republican candidates have to – with his brand of global socialism, he’d quickly lose his seat.
Maybe, by the middle of this decade, a....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
The problem is that the Tories have already lost the idealogical battle (to be sure, they didn’t put up much of a fight). The simple fact is that 90%+ of Britons take it as absolutely axiomatic that if something is wrong the Government (and only the Government) has to DO something. With that kind of mindset prevalent amongst the electorate, it is useless to argue for fundamental change. The best they can do is try to minimise the damage. Unfortunately, that only delays the inevitable collapse, not reverses it.
Apparently it is still referred to as the Daily Telegraph.
“Alex Singleton is part of the Daily Telegraph’s leader-writing team and is a contributing editor at the Sunday Telegraph. You can join his email list, follow him on Twitter and email him at alex.singleton@telegraph.co.uk.”
The world is watching us as many still resolutely but desperately cling to freedom’s cliff by their fingernails.
I was working a project in LaBadie Haiti. I actually saw a USAID meeting. It was outdoors in a tent. They had gathered a hundred or so Haitians and were giving them a lecture on “Green” economics. I kid you not. All the Haitians wanted was a hot dog.
I believe you. It sounds like the bs they do.
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