"after 12 years of a government which has infantilised the electorate by telling it that the state will always provide, there has been a shocking diminution of personal responsibility. We are a society addicted to victimhood.
As such, when things go wrong, we seek bogeymen rather than face up to our own shortcomings. We expect instant, painless solutions to self-inflicted problems. Britain's booze culture is blamed on the slick advertisements of drinks companies and the cut-price tactics of supermarkets. Our obesity epidemic is the fault of junk-food outlets and confectionery suppliers. And our personal indebtedness, the highest it has ever been, is the result of a pernicious campaign by greedy banks to enslave their customers. Oh yes, and the crash was caused by beastly Americans.
It is a mindset that is fostered by cynical politicians who see few votes in telling people that which discomforts them, even if it's the truth. Much better to identify a "dark force" and then roll out an initiative to tackle it. This exculpates the guilty, while creating an impression of activity.
For example, comprehensive-educated pupils are woefully under-represented at Oxbridge. The real problem, of course, is poor standards at too many state schools. But the dark force, according to Gordon Brown and his Yes Man, Ed Balls, is elitism, and their initiative to deal with it is to bully our best universities into widening access by selectively lowering entry requirements."
Hear, Hear!
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