PURPOSE BUILT BY YOU!

Tewkesbury:

A town situated in the north of the County of Gloucestershire with a population of some 80,000 souls. To the south of the town is a Wars of The Roses battle site known as "The Bloody Meadow", where Edward IV's Yorkist troops inflicted a defeat upon the House of Lancaster. It was also famous as a centre for religious dissent during the early 17th century. 

Why this brief history lesson? The reason can be found behind the two front doors of one, Miss Heather Frost. She, along with the ever accommodating Tewkesbury District Council and the Severn Vale Housing Association, have added their own piece of history to this otherwise un newsworthy town. Two adjoining houses have been adapted to accommodate Miss Frost and her brood of eleven children plus her partner and two grandchildren. A total of fifteen people split between the two houses. 

You've guessed it, she and her partner are on Benefits as also, one would assume, are her eldest eligible children. Here is the punch line: - The Borough Council has sold a piece of prime land to the Severn Vale Housing Association for the knock down price of £210000 with the proviso that SVH builds a six - bedroom, three bathroom purpose designed home for Mrs Frost, valued on today's market at around £400,000.00 

It would be reasonable to assume that this woman would be grateful to the Council, SVH and the Taxpayer for providing her with a brand new, eco friendly, energy saving property. Alas, no! She says she has the final say and if she doesn't like it then the District Council will have to build her another, bigger house more suited to her over-bloated needs.

I am a great believer in the Welfare State, I am also old enough to admit that I felt shame when I had occasion to use its facilities. I think most people over the age of sixty would feel the same. You see, we all knew it was there to fall back on in times of dire need but there was a stigma attached to it. If someone you knew or, God forbid, you, were "on the dole" it was spoken about in hushed tones - if at all. Today, it is shouted from the rooftops! You are deemed strange if you have a job. The "dole" has suddenly become a "Human Right".

As we now live in an era where our "Rights" and our "Personal Space" are more important than family values or genuine respect for others and their property, we must ask - because it's our "Right" - who is to blame?

The answer is simple, Government. 

Ever since the formation of the Welfare State, the Labour Party have been using it as a carrot to gain votes and approval. While on the surface, the Conservatives have always seemed less than happy with the Welfare System, they too have used it to full advantage when they felt the need to do so. Both Party's make play from the fact that the cost of the Welfare State is unsustainable, yet neither they nor the unelectable Liberal Democrats have come up with a workable cost effective alternative. Why? Because it would be political suicide.

Iain Duncan Smith, the latest lamentable Secretary of State at the Department of Works and Pensions, has come in, all guns blazing, with a raft of reforms which are unfair and, in the main, unworkable. It is a sad fact that the Welfare State is an animal which was created, with all good intent, by short sighted people. Therein lies the crux; politicians are, by Nature, short sighted. Their eye is always on the next Election, i.e a short five year plan.

It was the Liberal Welfare Reforms of 1906 - 1914 under Lord Asquith which set the foundations for the Welfare State in the UK. Sir William Beveridge took these ideas a mighty step further in his Social Insurance and Allied Services Report in 1942. This became known as the 'Beveridge Report' and was adopted by all three main party's of the day. The Labour Party, having won the 1945 General Election, implemented many of Beveridge's proposals and in 1948 the 'Modern Welfare State' was born.

No one took into account future advances in technology, science or medicine. Had they, the Welfare State may have looked very different.

Miss Frost and the thousands like her who believe it their 'Right' to take from a system that they have never contributed to are all victims and symptoms of a flawed concept. How do you bring this system kicking and screaming into the twenty first century? How do you make it into a fair, 'one size fits all' operation? I haven't got the answer to either of those questions but I do realise that Government interference for political gain is not the answer. Neither is it right to try and run the institutions within the Welfare State like big businesses. For one, they are designed - by their very Nature - to be non-profit making, to break even is not on the horizon. I said earlier that the Welfare State is an animal, in my opinion it should be treated as such. First, you should realise that you will only get out slightly less than you put in.

Ask any animal trainer and they will wax lyrical about the phenomenal amount of hard work it has taken to get their animals to do what they want them to do, when they want them to do it.

In other words, you have to invest time and money to get the required results. It is exactly the same with the Welfare State. We Invest our time and money, the State will then provide for us in our hour of need.

Simplistic but, true. What we now need is a think tank comprising economists, mathematicians, social welfare experts and other like-minded academics to sit down and work out a workable yet acceptable plan which will take us well into this century and be a blueprint for the next. The answers will not be to everyones liking. I'm sure Miss Frost will hate the proposals with a vengeance because they will undoubtably infringe her "Rights". 

We need an affordable Welfare System to ensure social stability. Hair-brained schemes by short sighted career politicians will never work. That is why I advocate taking the "thinking" out of their hands. 

Highlighting the plight, or otherwise, of a jobless mother of eleven is not the way forward; rather it sets the task of reform back. It will not be easy to sort out what has become a Political mess but I have faith in the British people. An answer can and will be found; it has to be or, in an echo from Dad's Army, "We're Doomed!"