Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew

There is an impenetrable form of received wisdom among many in the UK who look at the result of adults’ failings and see little more than politics, not poor human judgment. Calling them “feral children”, would like to think that they know where all bad things come from – not a PERVASIVE ENOUGH welfare state. From the left-wing Observer:

«Hare has little doubt that they are 'the product of 20 years of Tory government'. They will replicate the degradation suffered by their parents, but will do so younger and harder. Fending for themselves, they do not even have access to the dole, let alone a doctor or a dentist.»

The truth lies elsewhere. They are the result of every public institution in Britain being the bailiwick of leftists, regardless of who’s in power, what data show, time, and most of all, math.

The children Hare refers to are teens and young adults right now. The only PM they have known is a Labour man with a party that remains as confused and bickersome as ever, with many still foolishly flirting with discredited Marxist projects.

Their parents spent a decade with the Tories, but that illustrates a simple point, if it is no better or worst, how could partisan social policy have anything to do with it. Politicos themselves are the ones who don’t get it - far from the realm of sanity, civilization’s underbelly doesn’t care about politics, and doubling the micromanagement of their lives through welfare is meaningless if they simply ignore it and don’t use it.

What he misses is the obvious – personal failings might seem politically useful in a war of attrition, but not to the people he’s writing about. Surely the publishing houses found their answer to the huge body of conservative leaning commentary on life at the bottom in the UK, and they couldn’t wait to do their part in the war against an ideological foe, not against material poverty, or poverty of the will itself.

Hare certainly is writing sincerely – publishers, such as they are, seem more likely to think that they’ve found their own personal “gotcha!” against the society they thrive off of and love to hate.