– “Parents beware” de Sheila Lawlor no Daily Telegraph
Parents beware. If things get out of hand when your teenage offspring are out with their friends, you may hear a knock on the door. When you answer it, you’ll find a ‘supernanny’. This won’t be Mary Poppins, but a ‘parenting expert’ sent by the Prime Minister, with the explanation ‘Hello, I’m from the Government. I’m here to help you.’ These, as President Reagan famously said, are the most chilling words a citizen can hear.
England should now brace itself for a supernanny invasion if Tony Blair gets away with his latest scheme for the nanny state. He wants to parachute an army of ‘parenting experts’ into 77 areas across England. They are to ‘step in’ to help parents who are ‘beginning to struggle with their children’. The Prime Minister says this is for the good of the young people – and the community.(…)
No Mr Blair! The answer to failing families is not more state and more taxes to pay the bill. The latest wheeze will cost £4million to begin with. Hard pressed families will have to find that money. The answer, rather, is less state. The Government should learn from James Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning economist – that the more it intervenes, the more it destroys the small bodies, the family, the schools, the churches, the communities, which bring the order and stability essential to a free society.
– “Consequências” de Miguel Morgado no Cachimbo de Magritte
[O] discurso de Royal é útil na medida em que permite vislumbrar uma tendência. O socialismo europeu, em particular na versão francesa e espanhola, adoptou o caminho “populista”. Bem sei que em Portugal a palavra está saturada, mas neste caso não há alternativa. Royal assemelha-se ao “populista” do final do século XIX William Jennings Bryan quando este se bateu pelo “homem comum” e denunciou o padrão-ouro. Tal como Bryan, também Royal poderia dizer “Não enterrareis no sobrolho do trabalho esta coroa de espinhos, não crucificareis a humanidade numa cruz de ouro” (reconheço que a laicista Royal teria de evitar as referências bíblicas, e que substituiria o ouro pelo euro). No imaginário de Royal, o Banco Central Europeu ocupa a posição de instituição tenebrosa da igualmente tenebrosa “globalização”, apostada no ataque incessante aos “direitos sociais” e ao “modelo social europeu”.
