The Conservatives are projected to win UK’s election yesterday. Fears of Labor Party revival has been laid to rest. There are many reasons why Labor lost this election. But one reason that stood out is the promise of too many freebies to the general public.

Britain has been a nanny state for many years now. The state is the largest employer in the country. I wrote on this topic back in 2010 when David Cameron became the Prime Minister. Inefficiency and low productivity is rife in the country’s public sector. For example, during  a recent visit I observed there were 3 workers involved in picking up trash from each house. One was the trash truck driver. The other two were literally picking up trash cans with their hands and dumping trash into the truck. In the US, trash pickup is done with just one worker – the driver of the truck which is equipped to pickup and empty trash in an automated way. There is no need for 2 more workers and work is far more efficiently as the sole driver is cover more streets.

Coming back to the UK election, according to a recent article at Financial Post, the Labor party promised to offer many free things to Britons such as free broadband, free cricket broadcast, free dental care, free bus passes, etc. From the article:

So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Labour wins. “Nightmare on Downing Street: Friday the 13th” is the headline this week above analysis of that outcome in the Tory-supporting Spectator magazine. Labour’s election platform, its “manifesto,” as it calls it, “for the many, not the few,” would be the playbook for a Labour government and maybe also, if Labour does better than currently expected, for Left parties around the world, including here.

What jumps off the manifesto’s pages — 35 of them, in fact — is the word “free.” The first use, by Corbyn in an introduction, is rhetorical: “The big polluters, financial speculators and corporate tax-dodgers have had a free ride for too long.” But most of the others are with reference to the proposed new price of many public services: zero. Corbyn uses it six times in his intro, highlighting “full-fibre broadband free to everybody in every home in our country,” “free university tuition with no fees,” “free lifelong learning, giving you the chance to re-skill throughout your life,” “free prescriptions for all” from the National Health Service, “free basic dentistry,” and “free personal care for older people.”

The rest of the document provides details: “free annual NHS dental checkups,” “free bus travel for under-25s,” “free hospital parking for patients, staff and visitors,” “free personal care, beginning with … older people, with the ambition to extend this provision to all working-age adults,” “free education for everyone throughout their lives,” “free preschool education,” “free school meals for all primary school children,” “free support and advice (from a new Business Development Agency) on how to launch, manage and grow a business,” “free entry to museums,” “free TV licences for over-75s,” and “free bus passes” for pensioners.

My favourite of all, however, is: “we will add the … Cricket World Cup to the list of crown jewel sporting events that are broadcast free-to-air.” At the moment, legislation provides that certain “crown jewel” events — the Olympics, soccer’s World Cup and FA Cup Final, Wimbledon finals, Rugby World Cup finals and so on — must be offered to free-to-air broadcasters at fair and reasonable costs. Labour will add cricket to the list. Not being a cricket fan, I’m not quite sure whether that says more about Labour moving upmarket or cricket moving down.

Source: William Watson: God help the West if ‘free-cricket Corbyn’ wins in the U.K.,  Financial Post

We all know there no such thing as “free” especially from the state. No wonder the Labor Party lost.

Instead of giving so many things for free, Labor might as well promised Britons to simply give them free everything anyone needs like food, shelter, TV, cell phone, car, vacation, jewelry,high-end perfumes, quality clothes,  etc. This way there would be no need for any private enterprise. The government can simply act as the nanny for the whole country including adults.

After all this is done, Labor might have as well declared UK to be a communist country to make everything easier !………😊

Luckily they did not win.