Anti-woke stance is not being uncaring

What I, Peter Ferbrache, Richard Digard and an increasing number of public figures in the UK object to are those members of single-issue groups who will not debate any alternative view but instead respond with denigration or insult.

The senseless outbreak of anger and public disorder about Britain’s imperial history is an example of the wokes in action. Before they topple statues, I would like them to consider whether they would have been happier living in the Zimbabwe of Mugabe or the colonial Rhodesia of Ian Smith? I think I know what most would prefer.

Africa is a wonderful continent full of resource and potential and therefore is it not curious why so many of its citizens desire to come to Britain for a better life, despite all the problems that the Black Lives Matter movement rail against?

I would also like to highlight that section of the LGBT single-issue brigade who, in typical woke manner, are doing everything they can to actively promote their transgender views, including to schoolchildren.

I find it difficult to understand how we have reached this position where government had allowed the stable unit of our society, marriage, to be debased and eroded over the years. They have given way to pressure for people’s rights whilst ignoring people’s responsibilities, particularly in regard to children.

There is a great detail of evidence, particularly in the USA but also reflected in Britain, that children from fatherless relationships have more difficult and less law abiding lives than children from stable heterosexual relationships. The county line drug network is a prime example of the use of vulnerable minors from such circumstances.

Alex Garner clearly preferred the political balance of the previous Assembly and is uncomfortable that power has shifted from those who favoured a nanny state where everybody must be looked after from cradle to grave. I think many, or even most, Guernsey men and women think that we should be taught to take responsibility for ourselves and only those who are genuinely unable to do so should be helped.

The struggle between these two ideologies came to the fore in the last December States meeting to approve the budget when deputies John Dyke and David De Lisle opposed the ESS proposal to raise the benefits cap payable to families by 5% (this following a 13% increase last year). They made a well-argued case which was factually supported by strong statistical evidence. But then what happened?

The rump of the nanny state members of the Assembly went into full woke mode, attack, led by Peter Roffey and Tina Bury with fervent support from Yvonne Burford. Did they address the logic of the amendment, did they challenge the statistics? No, they resorted to emotive terms of denigration calling the proposal ‘unbelievable’, ‘grossly offensive and ignorant’ and showing ‘...a total lack of compassion’.

Deputy Dyke should have, in fact, been congratulated and a mature and sensible debate should have taken place rather than the amendment, seeing no hope of this, being sensibly withdrawn. Deputy Dyke brought into the open the problem of dysfunctional families which does exist and should be addressed rather than swept under the carpet or their existence denied.

In fact, I don’t think that Deputy Roffey and company actually believe that anyone receiving benefits might not actually deserve them, notwithstanding a large body of anecdotal evidence that suggests otherwise. Do they believe the system is there to pay out the hard- working, living-within-their-means, taxpayers’ money to anyone who claims it however irresponsible their behaviour has been? Do they think that there are no benefit receivers ‘playing the system’ successfully?

I would be interested to know their viewpoint, for instance, of a hypothetical case such as a mother with two children, living solely on benefits, in a States house, unsupported by the father or fathers of her children and then becoming a mother again with a third child, with no father in evidence, to be kept by the States?

I am writing this letter in the hope that these issues will be discussed and solutions sought. If this happens, the certainty of the insults of the wokes and the trolls that I expect will be worth it.

GEOFF DOREY

Les Queux, Ruette des Effards, Castel, GY5 7DQ