A Statist’s Paradise, But She’s Still Not Happy…

Deborah Orr on the Case of the Purloined Daffodils:

When the Errington girls encountered a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils, in Whitecliff Park, Poole, Dorset, the three children, aged four, six and 10, picked some of them, and played with them. Their mother Jane Errington, and her partner Marc Marengo, father of two of the children, did not tell the girls to stop. Neither did Conservative councillor Peter Adams, who saw what the children were doing. Instead, he told a member of his family, who called the police and reported what was happening.

Hurrah! Just what you left-whingers want, eh, Debs?

A society where no-one does anything for themselves, but instead looks to the state to act?

Nevertheless, Errington feels that her family was subjected to an over-reaction, and says that her youngest child is now afraid of returning to the park in case her family is "taken away by the police".

That’s pretty much an over-reaction in itself, isn’t it?

Perhaps Adams, and the family member who made the call to the cop shop, have been taking very, very seriously official advice that warns the public that it is dangerous to be a "have-a-go hero". Was it beyond the wit of Adams and his family member to come up with a formula whereby they could tackle this problem casually and without much confrontation?

You first, love, eh? Go tell the first vandal you see to stop what they are doing immediately. I’ll wait here with the bandages…

Were they really afraid of such massive risks as possible rude words, telling them to mind their own? Did they imagine that this scene of pastoral over-reach could escalate into violence against them?

It’s not like it hasn’t ever happened before, is it?

But Deborah seems to want to have her cake and eat it, too:

Funnily enough, the myth is that, in the good old days, stern words from the local bobby over apple-scrumping, and the threat of parental tip-offs were enough to nip all sorts of delinquent behaviour in the bud. The reality appears to be that, on the contrary, involvement of the police in scrumping activity of any kind is too extreme for children, or adults, to be subjected to.

That was then. This is now.

Yet there is one aspect of this case that does pinpoint a distinctive feature of contemporary British life, and that is a widespread and powerful attachment to "negative liberty", in which people want very much to be able to get on with their own business without do-gooders or agents of the state interfering, yet tend to engage little with the concept of freedom and how it works at a societal level.

What..? I’ve read and re-read that, and it still makes no sense.

The tendency in itself makes people wary of intervening – so local politicians stand by as other household members call the police, and police officers sulk in cars wondering what to say and do — with the result that even quite small points of conflict can become quite large.

That’s the end result of the policies and theories the left have been advancing for decades. Are you saying you were wrong?

Generally, people don't want to be judged and found wanting, are not used to being judged and found wanting and don't much like it when they are.

The media is extremely sympathetic to people who were minding their own business, and got ticked off very extravagantly for not minding it that brilliantly. And that's the appeal of this story.

To hell with the media. Apart from the pointless waste of police time, check out any online story about this that allows comments.

Most people aren’t in favour of the Daffodil Plunderers. And most feel that calling the police was a waste of time. But they are only too well aware that in the modern society we are creating, it's often the only choice.

Longrider isn't impressed either.