THE fun starts when you have recalibrated your normal thought processes to imagine a reality where a Conservative administration might have knowingly and in full possession of its faculties spent £8m a year on baby boxes. This is the party which traditionally likes to convey messages of self-reliance; of rewarding hard work; of standing on your own two feet. It abjures needy and squishy concepts such as welfare and something-for-nothing. After all, Britain didn’t become great and win those wars by feeling sorry for itself.
So what items would we expect to see in a Conservative baby box? I’m sure some of those present in the SNP’s baby box would be in there like the vests, the sleepsuits and the socks. I like to think though that the Tory version would have drawn the line at the Jersey trousers, the fleece jacket and the scratch mittens: we don’t want to mollycoddle the little blighters, do we… what? I’d also expect to see an instruction manual in easy-to-use steps by which baby can reassemble the box and turn it into an armoured vehicle. There would be a little obstacle course involving a treadmill and a climbing frame which, upon completion, leads to a wee bar of chocolate. The brat would then learn early lessons about hard work and reward.
There would be no fey children’s books but instead a copy of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the bible of all self-made Tories everywhere that shows how you too can make it from the poorhouse to a regency apartment if you stick in and learn how to pick a pocket or two. In the full and certain knowledge that these boxes will only actually be used by people who really need them, ie poor people, there would be miniature tins of baked beans and packets of rice. Thus they would become accustomed to the fare on offer in our admirable food banks where most of them will end up as we seek to reduce Britain’s deficit.
I suppose it was only to be expected that a Tory politician would eventually ask questions about the SNP’s baby box. That it’s taken them nine months demonstrates admirable restraint. They must have been gutted at so much free stuff going on when the country needs to be taught lessons in prudence and self-sacrifice.
It was left to a Conservative MSP called Mike Briggs to pressure Nicola Sturgeon on these blasted boxes. He chose to do this on the grounds of health and safety. The First Minister dealt easily with Mr Briggs by demonstrating that the boxes complied with every statute going on flammability. This though didn’t stop The Sun going further by taking a blow torch to a baby box and expressing horror that it took more than seven minutes for the crib to be engulfed in flames. This was rather irresponsible of the famous red-top as it could only give a certain type of Tory ideas. What if parents could be encouraged to take a blow torch to the baby box with their new born inside? Those babies able to make it out safely could immediately be enrolled for their local SAS training academy. Certainly the Spartans would have approved.
“What is it about the baby box that so offends the Conservatives,” asked Ms Sturgeon. What indeed? I suspect that this may have something to do with spending public money on what amounts to a giveaway for the ignorant and unwashed hoi-polloi, few of whom will ever vote Tory. The SNP baby box also contains a couple of packets of condoms. I suspect too that the ideal baby box for some Tories would contain nothing else but condoms… unless they were being given to the Royal Family. The House of Windsor of course gets its own version of a baby box whenever their assorted, fecund highnesses announce another royal birth. These routinely include a fully kitted-out nursery, occasionally a whole house; a couple of horses (the non-edible variety); a park or two and their very own security detail. Huzzah and hip hip …
I’ve always been intrigued by the generally accepted norm of the Tories being the party of financial rectitude and of hard work bringing its own rewards; that if you take away state aid you create a level playing field in which natural selection flourishes and the cream will rise to the top unassisted. It’s a well-rehearsed narrative that is designed to appeal to people from traditionally non-Tory backgrounds exemplified by such as Norman Tebbit, Sir Alan Sugar and the new UK Home Secretary, Sajid Javid. Several of the current crop of Scottish Tory MSPs and local councillors also fall into this category, discounting those that seem to have issues with Gypsies; Catholics, immigrants and members of the LGBT community.
It’s also one of the greatest myths of modern UK politics. No political party other than the Conservatives is more wedded to the concept of privileged mediocrity. It stands for and indeed encourages the concept of rewards accruing not to those who work hard but to those who have deployed unfair advantage. When they see a level playing field their first instinct is to tilt it in favour of money, property and inherited influence. This does not reward the best and the brightest rather it provides money and power to those who would struggle in a fair competition. It is the most exclusive welfare state in the world.
I can understand why those with the most to lose and who have been accustomed to unearned wealth and privilege will find refuge in the Conservative Party and will fight to the death to defend it. Why someone like Mr Javid is proud to be used by this most hard-right of Conservative administrations to deflect attention from the contempt it so clearly harbours for the people of his community is utterly beyond me. I’m equally at a loss to understand why a working class person whose opportunities to shine were gained despite the party could find a home among those who were once their jailers.
The baby boxes represent a small oasis of kindness, a temporary relief from an onslaught of punishment and pain from the Westminster Tories who would prefer to reward tax-dodgers and international money-launderers. Is any working class Tory in Scotland brave enough to acknowledge this?
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