Myth...

We make a great deal of myth and myth-making. But only in condemnation, in the denial of myth.

Yet myth is more important than we think. It guides us more than we ever admit. And, it is that thing making us human, fallible and wrong:

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

We dismiss myth at our peril, for there is truth in it. A deeper truth about ourselves maybe, a truth of longing, of desperation for something finer, but still a truth. By all means stir the air with contending facts, argue away about percentages of this and ratios of that. I will join you knowing, as you know too, that beneath it all lie our culture’s myths – the myths of trade, the legends of business and the stories of England.

To lose all this in some fit of argued rationality would be to lose something grand. It would be to lose the myths that define us, that tell us who we are:

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-pattened; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.

The sense of wonderment that Tolkein captures here is intended -absolutely - as a defence of myth-making. Its says that without myth, our exploration ceases, the "truth" is settled and man dies.

So let's hear it for myth...

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Caroline Lucas - eugenicist?

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Or something pretty close:

David and Victoria Beckham may have been overjoyed to welcome their new daughter, Harper Seven, last week but, according to a growing group of campaigners, the birth of their fourth child make the couple bad role models and environmentally irresponsible.

As the world's population is due to hit seven billion at some point in the next few days, there is an increasing call for the UK to open a public debate about how many children people have.

Now the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, has joined other leading environmentalists in calling for the smashing of what TV zoologist Sir David Attenborough has called the "absurd taboo" in discussing family size in the UK.

 I was aware of the unpleasant agenda that Sir David and his friends at the "Optimum Population Trust" were pursuing but it does seem that the Green Party are dangerously close to aopting this unpleasant view.

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Spotting the planning myth that isn't a myth...

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) are launching a campaign to dispel myths about planning. So says their President:

"We will shortly launch a major campaign to dismiss planning myths, like the myth that planning is a drag on economic growth, that it fails to address climate change, that it allows the countryside to be concreted over and that it is weighted in favour of saying ‘no’ to every planning application. You know and I know that these myths are simply not true"

Unfortunately for the President one of those myths isn't a myth at all - planning does act as a drag on economic growth. It might be desirable to exercise some control over development but that acts simply to add costs to the development process - ergo less productivity and less growth.

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"Punishing the poor..." - exposing another left-wing lie about Conservatives

One of the rules of left-wing commentary has been to develop an uncontested mythology about the right - and more importantly about people who are not left wing. I say uncontested since when the mythology is contested any discussion descends very rapidly into unsubstantiated - even nasty - ad hominum attacks on the person contesting. Most commonly through the fallacy of 'guilt through association'.

Typical of these myths are the following:

"Tories don't care"
...and "Tories want to punish the poor"*

Here's a pretty typical example from Bob Holman (who is, I think, an official progressive saint) in an article about Iain Duncan Smith filled with crocodile tears:

The IDS I knew was a politician who almost wept at the plight of the poor. My guess is that, in order to reach his costly goal of a universal credit scheme, he has had to mollify the chancellor, George Osborne – and that can only be done by being like those Tories who take pleasure in punishing the poor.

The last sentence is a statement of the myth. I was brought up in the Conservative Party - my grandfathers were both Councillors, my father was a Councillor and mother, aunts and grandmas were all actively involved. I undoubtedly know more about "Tories" and what they take pleasure in than all the Guardian columnists and left-wing "community workers" put together.

And I can say categorically that from among the hundreds of Conservatives I have known well - from every background and at every level - I cannot recall a single one who took "pleasure in punishing the poor". Not one.

Rather the opposite - my experience is of good people who really care. Care enough to volunteer their time, expertise and cash to help others. People who would go out of their way to assist if they could. People who had a genuine sense that helping others is a duty placed on us all. Without those "uncaring Tories", meals-on-wheels wouldn't have been delivered, charity shops manned, soup kitchens run, community groups' books audited, children taken on trips...any one of a thousand acts of charity would have gone undone.

What the left mean when they say Tories want to "punish the poor" is that we don't 'get' that taking money in taxes and redistributing it in welfare is remotely "caring". It isn't care - it's the nationalisation of that duty we all have to our neighbours. The left have abrogated any responsibility to care to professional carers - social workers, community workers, youth workers and such like. And the result is the mess we're in, the dysfunction, the division and the failure of services.

All my life I've been surrounded by caring people – nearly all of them Tories - prepared to put their own time and effort into improving the chances of the poor. I have never heard any Tory suggest - even in jest - that we should 'punish' anyone for their circumstances, ill-luck or disadvantage.

Yet the myth persists. It is a lie and the people who say it should be ashamed of themselves.

*Note you can substitute 'poor' in this statement with any other group of your choice.
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