Cruel to be kind?

It’s becoming quite clear that our country’s problems are deep rooted and have probably been simmering for the past 50 years or so… about the time when our welfare state decided it was going to be a cradle-to-grave affair proposing to fulfil every citizen’s needs.

That well-meaning project now not only looks misplaced and idealistic, but has morphed into a toxic culture of social dependency which has seen our country top the league tables for single parents and divorce rates. The very system that was supposed to support and nurture family life has actually turned out to be its undoing. We’ve literally destroyed our society with kindness and hand-outs. In some parts of the country there are families where a lifetime of idleness has now spanned three generations. This isn’t going to be an easy problem to fix.

Since the riots began we’ve all become amateur sociologists with our own theories of what’s gone wrong. There’s a good reason for this… most of us have experience of these things and can draw our own conclusions of what’s wrong. For example, a friend of mine runs a café in the city in which I live. He employs three staff for most days of the week. Surprise, surprise… they’re all foreign! This isn’t because they are cheaper to employ than British workers as they are all employed legally paying £6 an hour and with full National Insurance contributions. The reason my friend discriminates against British workers is that he has problem finding any. Young British people don’t want to work in catering. The thought of standing at a sink and washing up for four hours is more than they can bear. Many of the British applicants he has interviewed for a job and taken on then fail to turn up for work, or turn up late, looking dishevelled, hung over or scruffy. There seems to be little pride in their appearance or even a wish to work. The Polish and Spanish workers he employs (and he has employed many) are without exception: hardworking, smart, well-educated, willing to learn and reliable.

Now, why is this? What makes a Polish or Spanish worker more willing to put in the effort? In a word: welfare. It would seem that the absence of comprehensive welfare support has meant that these foreign workers have grown up with role models who they have seen going out to work to support their family. Working is seen as normal. Also, the fact that those two countries are nominally Catholic nations with lower divorce rates also makes a difference. Whatever it is, we need to look at what those countries are doing differently to us and then adopt some of those practices. Welfare it seems is quite simply killing our children’s initiative and offering them nothing better than a life of idleness and boredom.

If we are to cut back on the welfare state that has severed the ties of interdependence between generations and family members, we also need to be certain that we offer the chance of an excellent education in the form of grammar schools as well as technical and vocational educations for those who don’t like or want to follow the academic route. We need to encourage businesses so that there are employment prospects for these kids. It’s a two-way contract and we need to completely rewrite the deal between the state and the individual. Iain Duncan Smith’s reforms don’t go nearly far enough. A wholesale rethink is required if we’re ever to get ourselves out of this dreadful mess.