Sadly this is indicative of a New Labour government that regards all its areas of responsibility not as ends in themselves but as tools for achieving equality and believes that equality can legitimately be achieved not only by improving the lot of the worst off but also by reducing the prospects for those who are well off: the reasoning is that it is better for a country to have a million school leavers with no education worth speaking of than to have half a million with a decent education and half a million with a poor education. In fact it is self evident that equality is never a worthy aim unless the equal standard that is aimed at is high. Governments should try to improve people's prospects, not to level them out.
Isn't this also how government economic policy works, where the government seems happy to bankrupt us all for the sake of a pointless uncosted spending spree, which can only make us all equally poor? The same thinking ruined our higher education system: the only way of ensuring half of all under thirty-fives were capable of going to university was by reducing the value of a university education.
And think, if the Weimar Republic had had a New Labour government:
The German people today are living through an exciting and dynamic era of change. After countless years of monarchic rule, this New Weimar Government has at last delivered on its key commitment of bringing about radical improvements in one of its priority areas of policy: “the economy, economy, economy.” When we pledged back in 1917 that we would make fifty per cent of the German people millionaires by 1924, our opponents, showing the sort of short-sighted opportunism and self-interest that we have all come to expect of them, attempted to sabotage our plans by calling our targets irresponsible and undeliverable. The sensible German people were not fooled, of course, and we have proved them right, for today we are all wealthier than ever before. Our opponents have attempted to undermine the amazing achievements of hardworking Germans everywhere and to damage their confidence and self-esteem by making the same old discredited claims that our excellent German currency has in some way been devalued, and that the happy prospect of ordinary people everywhere carting their vast wealth around in wheelbarrows should be a cause for regret rather than celebration. They accuse people of doing less than they once did in order to earn their hundred billion marks, when they ought to be congratulating them. I would point out that it is thanks to this government that Germany once again has the best economy in the world and that the Mark is still an internationally respected standard. Not long ago I had a visit from a constituent of mine, a single mother who is raising fifteen children on her own, as well as working sixty hours a week. This remarkable woman had managed to save up eight hundred trillion marks and was hoping to use the money to buy a small cruise-liner as a present for her children for Christmas. Imagine her dismay when she was told that this quite astonishing sum of money was not good enough, that she had not earned even a medium-sized yacht. It is up to us, the government, to fight this sort of elitist prejudice, the old-fashioned thinking that wealth should be limited only to a privileged minority. We will press ahead with the groundbreaking reforms we have begun, changing our economy for the better and ensuring that Germany continues to be the success story that it is today, and we will take every measure necessary to reinforce our resolve not to be impeded by the outdated and discriminatory practises of those that seek to deny our citizens the rewards they have earned. Today I can announce a new spending commitment, in line with our aim of democratising wealth in the twentieth century. We will pledge 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 marks of government money as part of our strategy to ensure that everyone is a trillionaire by 1930.
