If you’re looking for a story that sums up why Britain is in such a godawful mess, try this. At an Oxford college dinner in spring, 2011, the political author David Goodhart found himself seated next to Sir Gus O’Donnell, at that time the most senior civil servant in the land.
Mr Goodhart happened to mention that he was writing a book about immigration. And here’s what he says Sir Gus – now Lord O’Donnell – told him: “When I was at the Treasury, I argued for the most open door possible to immigration,” he said. Why? “I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare, not national welfare.”
That last sentence – reported in The Road to Somewhere, Mr Goodhart’s acclaimed book of 2017 – is critical. Because it’s the key to understanding the mindset of our 21st-century elites – not just in Whitehall, but in Parliament, broadcasting, academia, the public sector and the arts.
To put it simply: these people don’t think of Britain as a country. They think of it as a charity.
The Canadian author and professor Gad Saad calls this mindset “suicidal empathy” – a form of high-minded compassion so delusionally naive that it leads to serious social damage. And it helps to explain any number of the mind-boggling stories we read about our nation’s decline.
For example: the fact that, as we learnt this week, there are now more than a million foreign-born people in this country claiming Universal Credit (most of them unemployed); the fact that almost half the taxpayer-subsidised social housing in London has a foreign-born head of household; the fact that our Government has so generously agreed to pay Mauritius up to £30billion of taxpayers’ money to take the vital strategic asset of the Chagos Islands off Britain’s hands.
Indeed, I’ve no doubt it also helps to explain the Afghan resettlement scandal, finally disclosed to the public this week, which saw our governing class offer asylum to tens of thousands of Afghans at a cost of billions – and then use the courts to hush up the whole affair for almost two years.
If you’re looking for a story that sums up why Britain is in such a godawful mess, try this. At an Oxford college dinner in spring, 2011, the political author David Goodhart found himself seated next to Sir Gus O’Donnell, at that time the most senior civil servant in the land.
Mr Goodhart happened to mention that he was writing a book about immigration. And here’s what he says Sir Gus – now Lord O’Donnell – told him: “When I was at the Treasury, I argued for the most open door possible to immigration,” he said. Why? “I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare, not national welfare.”
That last sentence – reported in The Road to Somewhere, Mr Goodhart’s acclaimed book of 2017 – is critical. Because it’s the key to understanding the mindset of our 21st-century elites – not just in Whitehall, but in Parliament, broadcasting, academia, the public sector and the arts.
To put it simply: these people don’t think of Britain as a country. They think of it as a charity.
The Canadian author and professor Gad Saad calls this mindset “suicidal empathy” – a form of high-minded compassion so delusionally naive that it leads to serious social damage. And it helps to explain any number of the mind-boggling stories we read about our nation’s decline.
For example: the fact that, as we learnt this week, there are now more than a million foreign-born people in this country claiming Universal Credit (most of them unemployed); the fact that almost half the taxpayer-subsidised social housing in London has a foreign-born head of household; the fact that our Government has so generously agreed to pay Mauritius up to £30billion of taxpayers’ money to take the vital strategic asset of the Chagos Islands off Britain’s hands.
Indeed, I’ve no doubt it also helps to explain the Afghan resettlement scandal, finally disclosed to the public this week, which saw our governing class offer asylum to tens of thousands of Afghans at a cost of billions – and then use the courts to hush up the whole affair for almost two years.