Tag Archives: nanny state

Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: Why Richard Reeves is wrong about the ‘Nanny State’

By Geoffrey Payne | Tue 2nd October 2012 - 4:30 pm

When I joined the Liberal party in the 1980s, no one then used the term ‘Nanny State’. Originally it was a term the political right wing started to use; I do not recall when exactly. The terms betrays its upper case origins, a class that can afford to pay for a Nanny to look after the children.

Richard Reeves has recently published a Demos book that was handed out at the ‘What is Cleggism?’ fringe meeting at the Brighton conference last week. His use of the term ‘Nanny State’ is not new for the Liberal Democrats; I noticed Ed Davey use …

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