'Nation of cowards' created by compensation culture, says Letwin (UK)

[Khephra]

The shadow chancellor has said Britain is being turned into a nation of cowards by "compulsive caution".

snip.......

The Dorset West MP said: "Our obsession with risk minimisation is imposing terrible risks on society.


snip......

He predicted that: "We will pay a price for this obsession with risk minimisation and for the 'reckless caution' it engenders."


"The call to minimise risk is a call for a cowardly society. Society must learn to accept and manage risk," he added.


http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200409/eddf8f22-28ba-4ea2-9900-9fdac4b93aa5.htm

[The Traveler]

1. Uh, he has a point ... (n/t)

[miss_kitty]

2. gotta agree

on the face of it anyway. reminds me of a place not a stones throw from here...
damn i agree with a tory.

[Nay]

3. I agree to a point, but when the "risk" is something like pollution, or

unsafe machinery, etc., that some company or rich class will profit from, we are correct to be leery of people calling on us to "accept and manage risk."

There are risks, and there are risks. Those types of risks that can be categorized as "cutting corners" to increase someone's profit must be thoroughly looked at.

[The Traveler]

5. Yes

A polluter is really just spreading the costs of his production to the folk downstream. Their risk, his profit. That's bull shit.

But, if I choose to take the (in my opinion foolish but I still do it sometimes 'cause it feels so good) risk to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, that is my choice. HOWEVER if I wipe out and need $100,000 surgery to repair the ruptured blood vessels in my unprotected head, should you and all the others in the insurance group we share be expected to shell out?

Too much of that kind of thinking leads in the direction of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" type discussions. But the situation I give below is different.

Company X makes a motorcycle helmet that susposedly meets certain standards. I dutifully strap it on and go for a ride. What I don't know is the helmet is poorly designed and basically only succeeds at more efficiently transferring the energy of my fall into my neck ... breaking it. The company knew this but sold it anyway ... I was taking a risk I wasn't aware of and could not calculate.

You and I are clearly on the same page in the first and third case I offer as examples. The second bears some reasonable discussion.

[pfc]

4. usually tories favour risk as long as it only effects others...

remember oliver 'leftwing' and his ilk are rather averse to things that threaten their livelihoods and property and see nothing wrong with protecting theiir own from the vagaries of naked market forces.

[Dirk39]

6. Ooops..

Must be the simple truth: After 25 years of Thatcher and charming-Thatcher Blair, the obsession with risk minimisation is imposing terrible risks on society.
Compared to socialist/communist societies like the USA under Bush and Germany under Schröder, where only 13% of the people are poor, GB is doing not much better with a poverty rate of 20%. That's simply not enough. We have to change that immediately.
Kill the cowards! Only the strong survives! Let the survival of the fittest start again!
No more sentimental softies like Thatcher, Blair, Bush etc.

Let us kill the cowards. Iraq was just the beginning!
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[the Kelly Gang]

7. don't trust this creep..what he is really on about is tort reform ie:

smokers and asbestos victims cant sue for compensation..etc etc..never trust these right wing ratbags and the day they take a risk I'll eat my hat.

[SKKY]

8. Paralysis by analysis...

...Yep, that's the Brits alright.

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. Psychopath state

If he ever had any fight in him, Letwin would have given up the "good fight" when he was still in short pants.

During the Thatcher years, some right-wing psycho in this country (UK) came up with the term, the "nanny state", evidently intended as a slur; but on the most cursory reflection, it tells us all we need to know about the author of the term; nothing more. After all, what would any Christian, any sane person prefer to create for themsleves and for others: a "nanny state", a state in which everyone cares for each other? Or a psycho state? What we have at present.

I'm reminded of the story of a test given to the newly-deceased, where they are seated at table for a feast. Unfortunately, the handles on their "gobbling rods" are all so long that the children of darkness can't feed themselves and languish at the table in growing hunger and frustration; while the children of light each feed the person respectively opposite them.

Good "Private Eye" cover-photo now of Mark Thatcher stepping into or out of a limousine, with a bubble, "Lord Archer will vouch for me".

[Khephra]

10. Thank you for confirming what I thought he meant

Sounds like "nanny state" is the same as the Republican used "welfare state".

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Welfare State

Precisely, Khephra. The irony is that many of the far right in both parties came from relatively poor families and benefited from free education, potentially to the highest level - as indeed the whole family would have benefited from a properly funded and run National Health Service.

They have a very sharp comic strip in Private Eye now. The latest shows a patient in a hospital bed with oxygen pipe, cylinder etc, saying to him, "Mr Watson? Mr Watson? Do you know where you are, Mr Watson"?

He replies, "I'm in a gleaming, state-of-the-art hospital, fully funded, fully equipped, fully staffed - in a bright and sun-filled ward...".

The nurse turns to the doctor and says, "He's still delirious".
To which he replies, "Lucky s*d!"

By the way, I've burbled on here, but a lot of you have made very telling *specific* points deriding their hypocrisy. Brilliant stuff.

[TahitiNut]

11. Does this mean that "Limited Liability" companies are the epitome ...

... of cowardice? Since 'society' confers the entitlement of "risk minimization" on cowardly capitalists and assumes the excess risk in common, just where is the cowardice concentrated, Mr. Tory?

It seems to me he's pressing 'society' to assume even greater common liability in lieu of regulating the behavior of corporations which assume even less culpability for their actions.

Not to impugn 'Democratic Underground, LLC' of course.

[loudsue]

13. Well said, TahitiNut....

And ain't it the truth!

:kick::kick:

[Jamesm9164]

12. I would accept some of this if the build all the crap

producing factories in the upscale neighborhoods. Nope build them in the poorer parts and then call the folks sissies when they want compensation for the results of the pollution. I guess the same thing is going on in the US with war. Bush and the neocons are real tough when it is someone else's blood.

[airstrip1]

15. I am amazed any one on DU can take this drivel seriously

Any Briton will recognize that this is just another re-hash of the old Thatcherite agenda attacking the welfare state. The Tories have been playing this same tune since 1979. They have become so repetitive that it sounds like the record has stuck. Of course this attack on risk aversion is sheer hypocrisy. When it is their own supporters, such as the farming lobby who have been hit by some sort of disaster, the Tories are only to happy for them to bailed out from the public purse

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3607122.stm

What Letwin really wants is for corporations to be able to kill their workers with impunity.

Sadly, for the Tories, Blair has already stolen most of the ground formerly occupied by the Conservative party. As a consequence Howard, Letwin and Co have been rendered increasingly irrelevant. Even the Confederation of British Industry has poured scorn on some of the more recent Tory utterings. With Blair and New Labour in their pockets big business does not really need the Conservatives any more. Given that Letwin's party could only finish third in the last two Parliamentary by-elections I think his chances of becoming the next Chancellor of the Exchequer are slim.