Orwell Nods
By lex, on August 3rd, 2009
He only got the year wrong:
THOUSANDS of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday.
The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
“Too little, too late,” said the shadow Home Secretary.
It seems like far too much to me.
Update: No doubt the “Children’s Secretary” is acting from the most benevolent of motives. Social decay in Britain has costly consequences. But when it comes to the “root causes” issue, Mark Steyn plausibly marks * this brand of paternalism as a consequence of government’s encroachment into the private sphere, especially as it regards health care.
Good thing that can’t happen here.*
* 09-08-2018 Links Gone; no replacements found – Ed.