Told you so, part 3,765

With all the fuss about the hapless Chloe Smith being destroyed by Jeremy Paxman I thought I would remind readers of my posting about her at the time of her election as the youngest MP and a compassionate Conservative to boot. I stand by every word I said.

Fair is fair, or not

It was not my intention to return to the blog with a discussion of the Conservative Party Conference. (My absence was due to nothing more serious than a reluctance to go on the internet for several days. One gets these, possibly mistaken, notions that one must read books and have a life.) But this morning I heard the beginnings of the 10 o'clock news summary on Radio 4 after Neil McGregor's discussion of a Native American map of around 1775 in his series A History of the World in 100 Objects.

I did hear the various proposals of cutting child benefits for high earners and the problems in calculation that it is causing already, despite being merely part of a speech at the party conference, as well as one or two other cut-backs in welfare. I managed to note that a number of Conservatives are uneasy about the whole subject (one always expects cuts to hit other people) and a few ToryBoys getting their .... well, never mind. Let's just say they are drooling over the man some call George Awesome. (You really do have to be a sad person to think that.)

Of course, shouts the latter group excitedly, it is so brave to challenge your own supporters. With respect, I see nothing terribly brave about it as Georgie-Porgie and the Boy-King view the situation. They have done nothing but challenge their supporters ever since the Boy-King has been crowned because they do not like their core supporters. Their inability to win an unlosable election has taught them nothing: they still think that these people have nowhere to go.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with cutting back welfare pay-outs to people who are well-off and, one might argue, that cut-backs have to start somewhere. However, from where I am sitting this looks like cowardice. Sooner or later those public sector unions will have to be tackled and that will be a good deal more painful than having another go at the "well-off". The welfare dependency culture will have to be tackled (possibly that is what Iain Duncan Smith's still rather vaguely known plan is about) and that, too, is going to be painful and difficult. One cannot help feeling that the evil day is being postponed, perhaps till there is a real Conservative government but that seems ever less likely.

What caught my attention this morning is the BBC announcement that Cameron was going to talk about the need for people with "broad shoulders" to take more of the burden and what "fairness" was all about. I am not going to listen to the speech as my days of listening to political speeches are long gone. If someone pays me for it, fine. Otherwise, not on your life.

I do, however, wonder about the concept of "fairness" as defined by politicians. In fact, it is quite apparent to me that once politicians start talking about "fairness" it is time to take to the hills, which is what quite a few people will do, especially those at whose expense this "fairness" is being proposed.

It seems to me that the Boy-King sees the money that is to be distributed in welfare as something that just exists or happens for him and his little friends to play with. He can, therefore, decide whether it is fair to give so much to somebody who earns more and so much to somebody who earns less. It has to be "fair", you see, and "fairness" is something that only people at the to can decide on. If this sounds familiar then so be it.

What neither the Boy-King nor his little friends seem to be able to grasp is that money is earned or made. The people who, he thinks, should bear a greater burden, are already doing so: they are the ones who pay into the pot most of what is in it. It is their money or, rather, our money that the government plays around with and decides to distribute in a "fair" way.

It has been said for some time that there is a kind of an unspoken contract between the vast middle class and the government. The former will contribute the funds that the latter can redistribute but will, in return, get some benefits. If those benefits disappear either because there is not enough money or because it is "unfair" will the vast middle class continue to contribute such a huge amount in tax and leave ever less spending money for itself? Has the Boy-King considered that it would be much fairer to start removing the state from various aspects of our lives, reducing taxes in order that people of all income should be able to run their own affairs, create more wealth and more jobs? No, I don't suppose he has. After all, those ideas are not "fair".

Compassion is much overrated

When politicians announce that they are compassionate I reach for my wallet because I know that I shall be parted from even more of my hard-earned cash. I also know that a politician's compassion usually means more power for the state, for our elected dictators (though not legislators) and for the unelected regulators.

Therefore, I have been somewhat underwhelmed by the news that the latest recruit to the Tory benches, 27 year old Chloe Smith, MP for North Norwich, is one of the Cameron brand of "compassionate Conservatives". This has been said by too many people for me to link to but Mr Google can help for anyone who wants to read postings and articles.

Compassion is much overrated as a virtue, in any case. It implies a lack of equality as the person who feels compassionate does so from a position of superiority. Sympathy, understanding, empathy are feelings of equality and are, therefore, much harder to achieve; they require knowledge, understanding and imagination as well as humility. "There but for the grace of God go I" is a phrase whose provenance seems doubtful but it sums up well enough the feeling that is most definitely not compassion but something much more useful and admirable.

Ms Smith is not only very young - one of her attractions to the Conservative Party - she is also inexperienced even by the standards of her age. Local school, university, employment by three MPs and a nominal position as management consultant with Deloitte from which she was seconded to the Conservative Party.

How does that compare with the experience of Harry Patch, whose death was announced today? By the time he was 27 he had worked as a plumber, fought in the trenches at Passchendaele, watched his best friends being blown up, was invalided out, married and had two sons, presumably going back to his peacetime employment.

Well, all right, those were unusual times. Few of us have had that kind of experience though many people I know have done as much if not more by the time they were 27. My own life has been remarkably peaceful, born as I was in the wrong place but at the right time.

All the same, by the time I was 27 (yes, yes, it is well in the past) I had lived in four countries and two continents, went to four different schools in three different countries, could speak three languages as a native and another one well, had worked in two different countries, was working on my doctoral thesis while teaching undergraduates. Nothing that can seriously compare to Mr Patch's life or my own parents' experience but still considerably more varied than Ms Smith's.

I know young people of Ms Smith's generation who, on leaving school, taught English in African schools or in China, worked with disabled children in Russia (not easy in a country that lacks a basic humanitarian approach to disability), helped in hospitals for seriously ill children and teenagers, or have already achieved positions of some responsibility in business. What has Ms Smith done that she has the right to feel compassionate? Worked for three Tory MPs and held a nominal position as management consultant with Deloitte from which she was seconded to the Conservative Party.

Men and women, younger than Ms Smith, are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with experience that this ninny can only feel compassionate about but can never understand.

One can go on listing people who have had more experience, have greater knowledge and understanding than Ms Smith (or her chief, the Boy-King of the Conservative Party and his best friend, Georgy-Porgy Osborne) indefinitely. Towards all of them Ms Smith and her party feels compassionate.

There was a time (not a very long one, to be sure, but highly memorable) when the Conservative Party believed that people had the right and the ability, indeed, the duty to run their own lives and the best way a government could help them was by handing back as much as possible of what had been taken away from them.

The family silver was not being sold off as that fatuous old man Harold Macmillan said; it was given or sold to the people who should have the rightful ownership, individual members of the family.

No longer. We now have compassionate Conservatism: people of no knowlege, no understanding, no experience such as Ms Chloe Smith feel that somehow they have the right to patronize us all and to tell us, for our own good, how we should run our lives. Oh yes, and we shall be paying for it all.