Two Tory faces in this government.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley recently crowed “no more nanny state” by claiming that henceforward he would end Labour’s penchant for lecturing and hectoring us about lifestyles. Local councils and businesses would no longer be coerced into creating and financing battalions of jobsworths whose sole purpose was to preach to us about how stupid we were while stacking up mouth watering wads of cash from our pockets via our taxes.
Good news?
Fat chance….
Instead of being lectured we are going to be “nudged” (aka bribed) by vouchers and goodies partly funded by the food and transport industries. Children will be nudged into walking to school. Shoppers will be nudged into buying healthy foods – and (no surprise here) it’s all based on a book written by two US academics…maybe he was too busy reading the book to remind his officials to be prepared for outbreaks of flu this winter.
Groan….
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles (a grand moniker for the man in charge of local government) says he is abolishing rules set up by the Blair regime forcing councils to charge high parking fees and restrict parking places in new developments all in the name of getting people to abandon their cars for public transport (something, of course, that no politician ever does, except for a PR photo op)
He is putting those decisions fairly and squarely back into the hands of local authorities and local councillors who will no longer be able to blame Whitehall when confronted by angry motorists and town centre retailers.
Moreover he is being aided and abetted by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond who says – brace yourself BBC Guardianistas – “Cars are a lifeline for many people”
Lansley’s soft nannying “Nudge” programme will inevitably employ scores of busybodies to implement, organise and supervise. Pickles, by abolishing those parking rules will,hopefully, need fewer civil servants in his department.
Exit question – who is the real conservative?
BTW – if you like the sound of Eric Pickles then read this and you might like him even more. Indeed there are some people who are already wondering that if David Cameron ever got involved with a bus……
