Britain: "Breeding" is a naughty word

We read:

"We have entered an era of heavy-handed policing. No, I don’t mean the kettling of schoolchildren, though I don’t like that much. I mean the policing of public discourse.

We must be shielded from the remarks of Tory peers and the online musings of a bishop. The law must be invoked to clamp down on silly jokes on Twitter. It is as if we are all sensitive little flowers that will wither away should we hear anything a little robust.

I defended Lord Young’s right to say what he thinks [see below] last week not because I agree with him, but because I believe in free speech. If the penalty for speaking your mind in politics is now to lose your job, then we end up with a lot of awful coded jargon.

This is exactly what happened on tough issues such as immigration. And this is exactly why the BNP and now the English Defence League can make headway, because they promise to tell it like it is. Censoring language never quells real disquiet.

Class, far from having ‘disappeared’, is now an equally combustible subject. Howard Flight has been immediately slapped down for his comments on child benefit. He said: ‘The middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive, but for those on benefits, there is every incentive.’

The word ‘breeding’, with its eugenicist undertones, is what has caused trouble.

Flight’s sentiment may be lamentable, but it is commonly heard everywhere: scroungers and immigrants are having loads of babies and living the life of luxury on heaps of benefits. This may be false, but it is what some feel is happening. Flight’s crime was to say what many Tories think.

Source

Lord Young was removed from his position after pointing out that low mortgage interest rates meant most people had been insulated from the effects of the recession. He put it rather bluntly, however, by saying that "You've never had it so good". Only weeping and wailing and garnishing of teeth is allowed from British politicians at the moment (Yes. I know the word is "gnashing")