Dan Hannan MEP posts a telling story on his blog today. He recounts how MEPs were outbidding each other three years ago to offer your money for the victims of the tsunami. Let's give a million euros for disaster relief, said one MEP. No, five million, cried another! Dan continues:
"And so it went on, each speaker attracting warm applause from Euro-MPs who felt warm about the fact that they were applauding. Then an Italian Christian Democrat, a gently mannered Catholic, rose with a suggestion. Why didn’t we make a personal gesture? Why didn’t each colleague contribute a single day’s attendance allowance to the relief fund? Immediately the warmth drained from the room. Those who had been hoarsely cheering the allocation of squillions of their constituents’ money were stony at the thought of chipping in €290 of their own. (Long-standing readers of this blog will be aware that, on top of their salaries and various other perks, MEPs get paid for turning up and signing the attendance register.) The poor Italian sat down to one of the most hostile silences I can remember, and the idea was immediately dropped."
It is the great truth about socialists and statists. They're always generous with taxpayers' money. A few further observations:
- Liberals want to spend others' money, not their own: I remember after the 1992 General Election hearing a Labour supporter moaning that the extra tax that they would have been happy to pay - had Kinnock and John Smith won - would now be denied to the NHS. After hearing this self-righteousness for what felt like a small eternity I suggested that she could always donate the money directly to her local hospital. She went deliciously silent - like the MEPs - on the subject. Peter Lilley once mischievously suggested a Voluntary Equality Tax for all such left-liberals: "By ticking the VET box on their tax return they would allow the Inland Revenue to remove any income or wealth in excess of the national average and redistribute it to whichever underprivileged group or public service the taxpayer designated. For some reason the idea failed to catch on among those who are normally so keen to promote a more equal society!"
- Conservatives are more generous than liberals: Research in the USA shows that conservatives are much more generous givers than liberals: "People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes. It is not that conservatives have more money. Liberal families average 6 percent higher incomes than conservative families." (Thomas Sowell).
- Spending other people's money tends not to be efficient: All of this reminds me about Milton Friedman's four tiered hierarchy of spending money wisely: "There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income."
PS Back to the tsunami... if you weren't online yesterday you may have missed Andrew Mitchell MP's article on the work that the world still needs to do in order to be ready to respond to natural disasters.
George Osborne has pledged to spend an extra £500 million of our money on increasing foreign aid, e.g. to banana republics ruled by socialist dictators. I therefore suggest that he sells the family business and give the hundreds of millions that he will inherit. Michael Spencer, the party treasurer, could spare a few hundred million too.
Posted by: Moral minority | December 27, 2007 at 11:55
Very good article, and very true. I would like to offer a further example of the 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do' approach to public money of Labour types.
The Senior Management of large Government spending Department with which I am very well acquainted has recently denied its junior staff a real terms pay increase. The Senior Civil Servants in this Dept, after 10 years of Labour, are almost to a man/woman hand picked Labour bell-ringers. They make no secret of it in conversation. They have said so to me, to my face, in close proximity to (useless) Labour ministers. The Perm Sec in this Dept, dare I say it another true Labour choirist, "personally intervened" to ensure that the pips squeaked this year for those of his colleagues earning £14,000 a year. Last week, John Hayes (Tory MP) discovered via a written answer that the self same Senior Management Team, in the self same Dept, had spent a whopping £12,000,000 of public money on First Class Rail Travel for themselves in the same year ! That little true tale sums up Labour and its type in a nutshell
New Labour and The Left- The Marie Antoinettes of British Politics.
"Let Them Eat Guacmole"- as Peter Mandelson might have said.
Posted by: London Tory | December 27, 2007 at 12:05
Sorry, I thought this was about Scotland. I will get my coat.
Posted by: englandism | December 27, 2007 at 12:14
What a nasty little story! It actually sounds rather "apocryphal" to me! If it is true, Mr Hannan perhaps you'd like to supply some names?
Posted by: Sally Roberts | December 27, 2007 at 12:14
I would say that the difference between the giving of 'Liberals' and Conservatives as illustrated by Dan Hannan, is probably fairly accurate. Perhaps the confusion arises because, what the 'Liberal' means by that label is that they are liberal in their way of thinking, NOT actually in their way of 'giving' !!
Posted by: Patsy Sergeant | December 27, 2007 at 12:52
"I remember after the 1992 General Election hearing a Labour supporter moaning that the extra tax that they would have been happy to pay - had Kinnock and John Smith won - would now be denied to the NHS. After hearing this self-righteousness for what felt like a small eternity I suggested that she could always donate the money directly to her local hospital. She went deliciously silent"
I once suggested much the same to someone proclaiming how vital it was for extra taxation, and how they would be perfectly happy to pay more to help others. I pointed out that you are, in fact, able to send in money to the Treasury over and above what they take from you by taxation; she ummed and ahd and mentioned something about how the point was that everyone should be doing it.
Posted by: David | December 27, 2007 at 13:19
Sally Roberts, our resident EUfanatic, smears Mr Hannan as usual.
Posted by: Moral minority | December 27, 2007 at 14:15
Oh dear, Moral Minority - and I've just been gracious enough to agree with you over on another thread! I am not "smearing" Mr Hannan - merely asking him to provide some more facts.
Posted by: Sally Roberts | December 27, 2007 at 14:55
Sorry Sally, but I read your comment as suggesting that Dan was being "economical with the truth". From my personal experience of MEPs, Dan is too kind to them. They are a greedy grasping bunch who prefer the gravy train to real reform.
I will take your word that you wanted more facts. To make up for it I will send you a virtual Christmas kiss!
Posted by: Moral minority | December 27, 2007 at 15:09
Thank you Moral Minority and I will take your virtual Christmas Kiss in the spirit in which it was offered and send you one back in return!
Posted by: Sally Roberts | December 27, 2007 at 15:10
Sally, MoralM - please get a hotel room or something.
Posted by: Geoff | December 27, 2007 at 15:25
Geoff I do apologize!!! I forgot that it was before the watershed :-)
Posted by: Sally Roberts | December 27, 2007 at 16:01
This is because almost without exception these are the "I need a mercedes and a mansion to help the poor" mob, ie they are in the helping the poor scam only to enwealthen themselves.
Actually I find it rather sickening.
Posted by: Bexie | December 27, 2007 at 16:15
Yes Bexie, indeed. The same type of hypocrisy as Al Gore needing a mansion, other residences and a private plane to help him fight 'global warming'.
I don't think that people with good intentions (whether sensible or not) need to wear a hair shirt or flagellate themselves twice a day, but a person of influence setting a personal example often sends a more powerful message than throwing other peoples' money at a problem from behind a lectern.
Posted by: Geoff | December 27, 2007 at 16:49
Geoff - I haven't come to a definite view on global warming.
I went to a CPS lecture by Nigel Lawson in late
2006 (who accepts there could be a natural marginal warming up since 1975, but is largely very dismissive of the threat, and quantified why - he thinks the rise in sea levels is marginal and can be made provision for).
We also have a large team of UN appointed scientists who disagreed widely at first, but have since concluded it is an artificial warming up and has to be dealt with urgently whilst there is still time.
There are also weather patterns which have been studied after the industrial revolution.
I suspect part of it is natural, but also that we are creating more Co2 than the earth can cope with naturally, and that it can be reduced by wasted energy.
But wasted within the context of what we want to do - so it shouldn't actually stop people doing very much.
We don't know for sure, so it's irresponsible to rule out arguments that may be right.
We need to listen to those who have gathered evidence and weigh it up - comments like because someone lives in a mansion they have no right to an opinion (on global warming and increased Co2) is a pretty dense and stupid argument.
Posted by: Joe James Broughton | December 27, 2007 at 17:57
Joe, I agree; everybody has an equal right to a view and an opinion - it is whether they use it for humanitarian reasons or partisan politics which should influence how we regard their speeches.
Let's not get sidetracked into a 'global warming' debate because it was just an example I offered of political hypocrisy by a two-faced fraud.
The whole thread is much more interesting.
Posted by: Geoff | December 27, 2007 at 21:19
The hypocritical left winger is pervasive throughout the campaigning for hte good of you market
From the 4x4 5 star hotel occupying "aid" workers in Africa and the "fairtraders" who put farmers out of business in the third world to the lying carbon offsetters in their pseudo businesses they are a scourge on our society.
My obersvation is that the only people who are genuinely out to help are the right wingers who's attitude to poverty is to help stop people being in poverty rather than the left who seem to make a business out of processing people in poverty. I could go on but there are many others who have covered this ground.
Posted by: Bexie | December 28, 2007 at 18:33