From Nanny State to Nappy State: Dave's handy how-to guide to wiping your tot's bot

By Nigel Jones for the Daily Mail

Published: 09:14 GMT, 18 May 2012 | Updated: 10:06 GMT, 18 May 2012

If you thought that the Coalition was intent on wiping out Britain's ever-mounting debt mountain, think again.

As the Prime Minister jetted off to the G8 summit in Maryland to confer with other world leaders (though how long declining Britain can remain in that category is doubtful) his parting words of advice to a nation gasping for reassurance and resolve in the teeth of the growing Euro crisis were....wait for it .. handy hints on dealing with what the Government cringingly calls 'tots' bots'.

It is not how to wipe out debt and deficit that is on Dave's mind, seemingly, but wiping the poo from babies' nappies. Instead of looking for ways to cut spending and save our dwindling cash, the Government that Cameron presides over has just announced that it is wasting millions more of it on a programme to advise new parents on changing nappies, breast feeding, and how to talk to your newborn child. At any other time this - literally - infantile nonsense could be laughed away for the absurdity that it is. But we are living through serious times that show every sign of becoming the gravest crisis since the 1930s, so a wry chuckle is hardly appropriate.

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The Government has spent millions on a programme to advise new parents on changing nappies. It would almost be funny - if times weren't so serious

The fact that this advice stems from a Cabinet largely composed of rich privileged toffs who leave their own childcare in the capable hands of trained and well-paid nannies is just one of the many rich ironies surrounding the affair. It is yet another pointer to the isolated and out-of-touch mindset of our ruling troika of Dave, Nick and George that they see nothing remotely funny or just a wee bit patronising in issuing these commands from on high to the oiks among the lower orders.

And yet, when you think about it, Dave's adult childcare education programme is hugely symbolic of the wider state of the nation. 'Decadence' is an unfashionable word today, but doesn't this retreat to the nursery signify a fiddling while Rome (and Athens, Madrid, and Lisbon) burns on a truly gigantic scale? At a moment when our Government should be bending every effort to tackling the economic tidal wave that threatens to overwhelm us, if any ordure is on our minds it should be that in which we are sinking, not the sticky stuff on little Dawn's diaper.

As for breast-feeding, instead of wasting its time and energy lecturing new mums on what should remain a deeply personal choice, why doesn't the Government emulate Ireland, which has become a world leader in the production of infant formula? Indeed, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy economic outlook for the Emerald Isle - caused by its reckless inflation of a housing bubble encouraged by subsidies from the EU -  is its burgeoning dairy exports which are now worth 200 million Euros a year.

Thanks largely to an edict from China's Communist rulers that every one of its citizens should drinka pinta milka day, Irish infant formula is now vanishing down Chinese throats at a rapid rate. Meanwhile, Britain's dairy farms are in crisis. A decade ago there were thirty thousand, now there are barely 10,000 - with one shutting every day. That is the milk issue that Dave should be addressing - not breast feeding.

One of the curses of our age is the cancerous growth of the Nanny State. The powers of Government in the 21st century have increased, are increasing - and should be diminished. The last Labour Government took gigantic steps towards restricting and controlling our private behaviour: nosing into our rubbish bins, minding our language for lack of PC content, installing CCTV on every street corner.

It might, therefore, have been thought that a Government that is supposed to be Conservative-led would do something towards restoring our lost liberties. But the opposite is the case. Freedom is being restricted yet further with proposals in the Queen's Speech to read our emails.

Governments just love to get on our backs, in our homes, even in our heads and beds. But I little thought that we would see the Nanny State  morph into the Nappy State.

VIDEO: Hear Dave's views on parenting... 

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