They probably don’t mean what we hope they mean
This:
The UK government will expand powers to tackle extremism by setting up a new whistleblowing route for university staff and giving the Charity Commission powers to shut down charities, as part of a new action plan to strengthen social cohesion.
That people don’t get a tax break on being extremists seems sensible enough. Obviously, such is always subject to the caveat about who has the power to declare something extreme. Equally obviously, tax privilege is a privilege, rather than a basic civil liberty such as being extreme. As long as people may have views then losing the cash advantage seems fair enough.
The university part is almost certainly not going to mean what we hope they mean. Which is that there’s now a hotline to report those who trail Marxist nonsense to the impressionable teenagers in their care and so get fired. Pity really, as we all do agree that we have too much university, too many universities, in Britain and that one act - fire the Marxists - would reduce the workforce by the required 90%. But there we are, our hobby horses are not - yet - public policy.
This, however, is a more serious point:
Sunder Katwala, the director of the British Futures thinktank, described the action plan as an important step towards putting strong foundations in place. “The pattern under successive governments, from the 2001 riots to 2024 riots, has been that you get these flurries of action when there’s a major flashpoint, and then less sustained strategy about what to do the rest of the time.”
Yes Sunder. That’s how politics works. Politicians, politics itself, only pay attention to things that are politically salient while they are politically salient. Everyone’s only, ever, trying to get marginally ahead of their perceived opposition and so win the next election. There is no consideration of the state of the nation, what should be done, what needs to be done. There is only what benefits the politicians - in office or would be.
Which is why politics is such a lousy way to run things and why minarchy is the answer to so much of what ails us.
Tim Worstall