A Thumbs Up for a Playground Spending Cut

As the government cuts a spending programme based on playgrounds, parasites across the nation start to bleat "won't someone think of the children?" Here's an example of one such idiot from the BBC news website:

Parent Emma Kane has worked with children in Hook Norton to set up a playground scheme which is now unlikely to go ahead. She said: "It's insane to cut what is such a small amount of money."

The small amount of money is £47,000 in this case, fact fans. And I've just checked - that is a lot of money, particularly when you can get a basic play set from Argos for less than £100.

She said playgrounds were a "soft target" for the government's "drastic cuts."

Except, of course, they're not a soft target in the sense that as soon as the cuts are mentioned, people like this Emma Kane start bleating and statists across the land try to paint the coalition as anti-child. In that respect, this is a tough thing for the government to cut as it creates what the modern politician hates most - bad publicity.

I will concede, however, that Playbuilder - for that is the Orwellian name of this statist project - is a soft target in the sense that it is not essential, and therefore ripe for cutting. But as anyone with even an iota of common sense will tell you, if you've got to make cuts, you cut the non-essential stuff first.

She added: "Playbuilder is unique in that communities had to come together and work together to get the funding, in a perfect example of 'Big Society'.

My own perception of the "Big Society" is that it is meaningless toss, so in that respect I'd say Playbuilder is a perfect example of it.

But the cutting of the programme does not stop communities coming together, pooling resources and creating a playground if they so desire. All this cut is stopping them from doing is expecting that playground to come from a government that uses someone else's money to fund all of its schemes. Basically, this simply means that those who kids would benefit from a playground now have to come up with the money if they really want to have one - rather than expecting the taxpayer to fund it.

"There's lots of disappointed children out there, they keep asking me what's happening and I just don't know what to say to them.

How about "go and play with a football in your back garden?"

"Furthermore, as everyone knows, playgrounds fight childhood obesity. What does it say about the government's strategy to cut projects that promote both health and communities working together?"

Yeah, because the way to fight childhood obesity is to let the government spend thousands on playgrounds. Rather than, I don't know, expecting parents to take some sort of fucking responsibility for their spawn and stop them turning into chunkers without government intervention. Or to put it another way, to act like parents.

This sort of thing exasperates me - it shows just how unimaginative and bovine large swathes of the population in this country have become. People no longer seem able to do anything unless the government does it for them. The government has to buy and build playgrounds. It has to keep children thin. Because it is completely ridiculous to expect parents - those who actually created the fucking children they bleat on endlessly about - to take some responsibility and actually do some fucking parenting, isn't it?

The government was right to cut this programme. The only reason why the decision has attracted any controversy at all (aside from those whipping up controversy for party political reasons) is because far too many people in this country have lost sight of the concept of personal responsibility and have become used to gorging on the teat of a bloated, profligate state.