So it can be done

Now that the great Marmite row has been settled, at least temporarily, with Tesco emerging as the unlikely champion of the ordinary shopper, we can all turn our attention to other matters related to Brexit, however distantly. This story must annoy the Remain campaign a lot as David Cameron's inability to secure a five year moratorium on welfare for EU migrants was one of the Leavers' best arguments. You see, we all said, nothing can be done, nothing can be achieved. Apparently, this is not so or belatedly not so.

On October 12, the German government approved a law

to curb social benefits for EU citizens who arrive in the country without a job, as it responds to pressure to get tough on migrants.

Under the draft legislation, which still needs to go through parliament, EU nationals who have never worked in Germany will have to wait five years before they can claim benefits.

One of the mysterious aspects of the whole process that eventually led to that vote on June 23 was Cameron's lack of success in his negotiations with his EU colleagues. We all knew or, at least, suspected that he would come back with a fudge but he came back with nothing. This would have been a popular agreement and would have been very useful to the Remain camp. Given what has just happened in Germany, it could have been pushed through Parliament but HMG, as usual, decided not to antagonize the EU.

Why exactly could the colleagues give Cameron more help? Did they not care what would happen in the UK or, more likely, could they really not believe that the people of this country would vote against the European project? One wonders what kind of regrets may have been voiced privately on June 24 about those negotiations.

Of course, there is a history to the problem in Germany as well.

The strict new measure comes after a federal court ruled last year that every EU citizen had the right to claim benefits once he or she had resided in Germany for six months.

The ruling sparked fears of “welfare tourism” from countries with a lower standard of living, and angered German municipalities who were already struggling with the financial burden of caring for last year’s record influx of migrants and refugees.

“It’s clear that anyone who lives here, works here and pays their contributions is also entitled to the benefits of our social system,” said Labour Minister Andrea Nahles after the cabinet adopted the legislation.

But for those “who have never worked here and rely on state financial aid to survive, the principle applies that they should claim livelihood benefits from their home country.”

Interestingly and annoyingly for the Remain camp,

A European Court of Justice legal adviser said on Tuesday that Germany may refuse nationals of other Member States ‘social security benefits for jobseekers who are in need of assistance, on the basis of a general criterion that demonstrates the absence of a genuine link with the host Member State,

So there we are. I can be done or that is what it looks like at the moment. But it is all too late for the Remainers. Perhaps they should turn their attention to matters such as this instead of trying to overturn the results of the referendum.

Big business loves big state - shock

This article is about American history and American politics but mutatis mutandis, it applies to us. Big business, as anyone who has really been involved in a fight against unnecessary regulations, of the British, the European or the joint variety, knows, loves them until they find themselves one to one against the state, having disposed of any competition through legal means. Even then various deals can be struck.

Furthermore, in the US, as here, it is assumed that developments through the unholy alliance of big corporate and state welfare are the only possibilities. Nothing else could ever have happened and that suits the statists just fine. Well, it ain't necessarily so. If we are to get out of the mess we are all in (and no, it is not as bad as the mess Russia and some other former Soviet states are in) then we need to look at various alternatives that existed or had been proposed. We might not like them but let us look at them.

Oh and while we are on the subject, I received a copy of Eamonn Butler's latest publication, Public Choice - A Primer. It will be read and reviewed.

Makes sense to the BBC

In BBC-speak people who consider that they and others should look after themselves and their families whenever possible and help other people in their own way with their own money, if necessary, are absolutely selfish. Being unselfish is wanting to pay higher taxes (or wanting other people to pay higher taxes) that can then be used and abused by highly paid but seriously victimized officials to make people do what is good for them in the eyes of those officials. Makes some kind of a logical sense and can be the only explanation why the BBC should misrepresent the National Social Survey as Philip Booth explains. Read the whole posting.

This, I thought, should be entertaining

And I was right. Lord Empey asked HMG

whether they propose to change the rules under which citizens of other European Union member states have access to the United Kingdom benefits system.

Well, we'd all like to know.

In HMG's name Lord Freud, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions, read out what the civil servants wrote replied:

My Lords, we do not propose to change the way DWP determines benefit entitlement for EU nationals, but we are considering the details of a European Commission reasoned opinion against the right to reside test. While we accept our responsibility in supporting EU nationals who work and contribute here, it is absolutely necessary that we protect our welfare system from those who come here with no intention of working or looking for work.

So, is that a yes, they do propose to change rules or no, they will stick it out and defy the Commission? Lord Empey asked for clarification, too, and got it, after a fashion:

My Lords, we are moving in two directions. First, we are looking hard at the Commission's opinion and considering whether we should go to court. We have two months in which to take that decision and the likelihood is that we will take it through the full legal process. The second area is the political one. We are talking to other countries which are also deeply disturbed about this. Some 13 countries have signed a motion calling for a minute statement and for a policy debate on this matter.

So, we are not just going to say "forget it" to the Commission and stick to our own rules for welfare.

The welfare state - in its beginning is its end

The welfare state sounded like an excellent idea when it started - people who fall through the cracks of private enterprise and charity, which is unreliable, do need some help. The Beveridge Plan in Britain envisaged a safety net for those who really could not cope and had no recourse to help. Who could argue with that. Well, we can now, as we see its outcome.

Dan Mitchell, of Cato Institute, explains the dynamic, giving two pictures as explanation. Here are the pictures, but the piece is worth reading.

Approaching it from the right side

A friend has passed on to me his copy of Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, the American publishing sensation last year. Subtitled, A Conservative Manifesto, it is a summary of conservative ideas as opposed to what Mark Levin calls "Statist" ones. How right he is not to subscribe to that ridiculous misuse of the word "liberal". There is nothing liberal about people who want to strengthen the state, take away people's liberties and impose their own idea of utopia on them.

Mark Levin is a writer, a journalist, a radio show host and another perpetual thorn in the left's collective side. He is also a constitutional lawyer. A real one.

The book swings along at a merry pace and, so far, there are only two quotes that I want to share with those who have not yet read the book. [Spelling as given, i.e. American.]

And yet, the Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last. He is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors. The industrious, earnest, and successful are demonized as perpetrators of various offenses against the public good, which justifies government intervention on behalf of an endless parade of "victims". In this way, the perpetrator and the victim are subordinated to the government's authority - the former by outright theft, the latter by a dependent existence. In truth, both are made victims by the real perpetrator, the Statist.

It is, of course, important to recognize how much of this has already been put into place and to what extent we have all become both "perpetrators" and "victims" as defined by Statists. It is also of some importance to try to define what the response ought to be.

However, the Conservative seeks to preserve and improve civil society, not engage in a mindless defense of the status quo inasmuch as the status quo may well be a condition created by the Statist and destructive of civil society - such as the 1960s cultural degradations, which are all too prevalent today. It is the Statist, then, who rejects even minor change if such change promotes the civil society, thereby challenging his authority.

We see this reluctance to accept change in many from the europhiliacs to the trade unions who are threatening the country with all manner of ills if the slightest necessary change is made to the current suicidal state of affairs.

But what of the times our own entitlements are taken away. Here is a story in yesterday's Scotsman. It seems that

FAMILIES will have to take more responsibility for looking after their frail relatives because the state can no longer afford to care for a soaring elderly population, Scotland's councils have warned.

Setting aside the thought that these days not all people over fifty or even sixty, seventy and eighty are so frail as to need constant care, one needs to ask why it should be considered to be such a terrible idea that families be asked to look after their relatives. Just another example, one might say, of our reluctance to take responsibility for what should be our duty.

Yes, but hang on a minute. In its fraudulent claim that it can look after us all and, particularly the frail and the elderly, the state has taxed us to a considerable extent, smugly taking away our money in order to use it for "our benefit". Now it tells us (and Scotland is not the only part of the country where this is true or going to be true) that it cannot do so and we have to take our share. With what, may one ask. Is the state going to stop taxing us to the point where we have no money to care for anyone who needs extra care in our families?

Furthermore, in its fraudulent claim that it can look after us, the state has produced regulation after regulation that has made it impossible for private individuals and companies to run care homes for those frail sick and elderly. Now it tells us that we need to find some way to look after the frail. Where exactly are we going to do it? Are those regulations going to be changed to make it easier for us to do so?

In other words, we must start with the notion that it is not the state's business to look after us and it should stop pretending it can do so; stop taxing us in that pretence or making it impossible through ridiculous and vindictive regulations for us to do so for ourselves. Sadly, that is not how the story is reported or accepted by many: the state should be looking after us; how dare it give the task over to the families of those frail elderly people?