My friend Will Clouston, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, dropped round with his wife for a bite to eat this week and showed me an ancient book he had picked up in a second-hand store in Hexham. It was titled Select Fables, with cuts designed by Thomas and John Bewick, and it dates from 1784. One little fable commended itself to both of us:

The wretch, who works not for his daily bread,Sighs and complains, but ought not to be fed,Think, when you see stout beggars on their stand,The lazy are the locusts of the land.

The wretch, who works not for his daily bread,Sighs and complains, but ought not to be fed,Think, when you see stout beggars on their stand,The lazy are the locusts of the land.

The question isn’t why are so many people swinging the lead, but why on earth aren’t there more?

The question isn’t why are so many people swinging the lead, but why on earth aren’t there more?

The writer was almost certainly Oliver Goldsmith, who died the decade before the book was published – people bought it for the notable engravings, rather than the commentary.

It struck me, reading that little rhyme, that we, as a nation, have shifted our position a little on our approach towards the locusts of the land. Today, we not only feed them, we’re also inclined to bung them a BMW, gratis. This thought certainly occurred when I read the case of the West Sussex skank Catherine Wieland.

Skank undoubtedly, but one with chutzpah. Cath suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder and depression, and as........

© The Spectator