There is no money tree

Subject: "There is no money tree"

"There is no money tree". 

We are all too often reminded of this when the cost of the NHS is displayed to show us just how much "we" as individuals cost, when for instance Pensions or Care for the Elderly are highlighted as being the main items of expenditure. It's as if these costs are somehow a drag on the country, that we would be better off without them, the drawers of a pension, the consumers of medicine and the constant repairs they need. Think how prosperous we all would be if we only concentrated, in a Thacheresque way, on the successful young healthily upwardly mobile.

Britain has been in decline for over 100 years. Having played a principle part in two world wars, enormously  costly both in human and financial capital we have never recovered. Unlike Germany who suffered greater deprivation and loss than we did we never grasped the nettle of the need to rebuild the stock which had been destroyed. We never understood the need to put away for a rainy day, we were profligate, led by less than wise leaders who placed their own needs before the nation.

There is no money tree, quite right. We have been living beyond our means for generations and we are all culpable. We have created a society which demands "rights" individual rights, as if these rights were ordained by some higher power when in fact if there was a "higher power" I am pretty sure some of these 'so called rights' would be questioned. 

The right to have Botox or Viagra on the NHS, the right to Abort a baby on demand, the right to express your minority right over and above the rights of a majority, the right to express the most hurtful hatred verbally knowing that the law protects you from the consequences, the rights of women over men in custody battles, the rights of institutions over individuals and of politics over common sense.

"There is no money tree". But the nation is to fund a high speed rail link estimated at a final price of over 100 billion pounds with little justification other than a 15 minute saving for the mainly business class on their trip into London.

"There is no money tree" But we will build a nuclear power plant outrageously overpriced for which we guarantee the foreign consortium, the Chinese and the French triple what we pay for a unit of electricity at this moment today.

"There is no money tree" But we will build another runway at Heathrow ignoring the misery the extra flights will bring to the heavily urbanised surroundings when Gatwick, with a super high speed link into the centre of London, or the not so silly Boris Island, East of London which could be the new , a modern, as large as you like airport, built from scratch.

"There is no money tree" But we will spend billions on a nuclear submarine to ensure our image of still being relevant in a world dominated by 'super powers' with nuclear arsenals which dwarf our puny attempt to stay relevant.
No there is no money tree but when we want to, we still find the money as if there were.