the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I’m big enough to admit that I may have been wrong for the years I’ve been writing this blog. Specifically in regard to posts lambasting “The Guardian’ for what I perceived as a craven surrendering of journalistic ethics to better pander to ‘the hypocritical self-delusions of its readers.’

I now realise that it may be nothing of the sort, that it might in fact a highly principled stance, one that not only upholds but perfectly exemplifies the standards of modern journalism.

‘Labour urged to end two-child benefits cap as research reveals policy pushing families into poverty” thundered a headline, reporting on demands that NotHardie, if elected as PM in the next election, scrap a policy introduced by the Conservatives, one that limits benefit payments to a maximum of two children per family.

Or to be more accurate, scrap a decision he made last year, not to scrap the policy. 

‘The Guardian’ has been a quite vocal opponent of this policy, about how this and that it is, and quotes statistics from some totally impartial think tank to underline the fact that the villain in all of this is the government. But the real villains here, the ones who are actually causing the hardship that ‘The Guardian’ considers so unpalatable, are the parents themselves.

It was made abundantly clear when the policy was announced in the budget of 2015, that if you were claiming certain benefits and already had two children, that after April 2017 when the policy was to be introduced, no benefits would be paid to a third. This then wasn’t a huge secret, nor was it devious plan announced one day and enforced the next. It was both well publicised and its implications therefore understood. 

Except by those who were on benefits and decided to have a third child anyway, it seems, because 

“ Analysis of official data reveals that 25% of all households affected by the two-child limit are currently single-parent households with a child under three years old. About 106,000 families fall into this category” 

The maths here are quite simple. Its not difficult, 18 months between announcement and implementation, and 9 months for pregnancy means that any child conceived after July 2016 is nobody’s fault other than the parents. How is it the governments fault if some people not practice better birth control?  If ‘Guardian’ journalists and their readers can’t work that out, then they must have a special moral compass that allows responsibility for this to shifted away from the guilty and onto an innocent in order to bolster a pre-existing narrative. 

One that allows it continually propagates the incredibly simplistic notion that everything the Conservative government does is bad, whereas it’ll all be milk and honey once Labour take over. A narrative that manages to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable propositions, namely that you can have children and be excessively concerned about climate change. One that allows for foreign holidays and increased consumption, just as long as they’re the right sort of holidays and the right sort of consumption.

Anyway, back to the article and the immoral compass.

‘Analysis also shows that 20% of households affected by the policy have at least one disabled child. While there are exceptions if the third or subsequent children are disabled, there are no provisions in place for the disability of other children. About 87,500 families with a disabled child are affected.’

I know this next observation might upset some people, but the fact people are offended by something doesn’t make it less true. So possibly if I was living on benefits and already had two disabled children then I might think twice before having a third. Again maths, again birth control, again blame. Writing of blame, lets head on back to the article shall we, and find out what we should blame.

‘Over recent years, several shadow cabinet ministers have been severely critical of the cap. Jonathan Ashworth, when shadow work and pensions secretary, said last year: “We are very, very aware that this is one of the single most heinous elements of the system which is pushing children and families into poverty today.”’

Really? That’s the cause? How blind to anything other than his own career must someone be to say something so utterly partisan and how wilfully obtuse must anyone reading that be to think ‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’

And not to think ‘Mmm, maybe it isn’t that easy to identify one single thing as the main culprit, perhaps there are many causative factors at play here, and that there all somehow interlinked. Possibly my life style may have contributed to it in some way?’

The gig economy and zero-hour contracts. Uber, Deliveroo and Just Eat, Amazon and DPD, babysitters and dog-walkers?

Other things, way outside governmental control like domestic violence, substance abuse and illness. And things within governmental control, like education, housing and crime?

And this is where the ‘highly principled stance, one that not only upholds but perfectly exemplifies the standards of modern journalism‘ kicks in. “The Guardian’ doesn’t have one obscenely wealthy shareholder, one who uses it to promulgate their own vested interests, instead they have thousands of smaller shareholders, or ‘supporters’ asks based  they’re euphemistically called. The ‘principled stance’ and ‘standards of modern journalism’ remain exactly the same, only mores, as the more it correctly anticipates its owners interests and validates them, so the cash keeps a’rolling and the virtue keeps a’signalling.

This in turn gives them pantomime politics with clearly defined villains and heroes.

I was wrong about being wrong. Seems that two wrongs do make a right after all. Phew!