Nanny state is a term of British origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice. The term "nanny state" likens government to the role that a nanny has in child rearing. An early usage of the term comes from ConservativeBritish Member of ParliamentIain Macleod who referred to "what I like to call the nanny state" in the 3 December 1965 edition of The Spectator. The term was popularised by the British and American tobacco industryespecially by their touring celebrity-lobbyists Bernard Levin and Auberon Waugh and later by PM Margaret Thatcher.
Uses of term
Australia
The term has been used to describe the policies of both federal and state governments. Canadian journalist and magazine publisher Tyler Brûlé argued that Australian cities were becoming over-sanitised and the country was on the verge of becoming the world's dumbest nation. This was blamed on the removal of personal responsibility and the increase in the number and scope of health and safety laws. Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm also used the term when launching an Australian Senate enquiry into laws and regulations that restrict personal choice "for the individual's own good". The term has also been used to criticise mandatory bicycle helmet laws, gun control laws, prohibitions on alcohol in public places, plain packaging for cigarettes and pub/club lockout laws.
New Zealand
The term was used by the New Zealand National Party to describe the policies of their political opponents, the Fifth Labour Government, who were in power from 1999 until 2008. The child policies of the National Party's Paula Bennett were later given the 'nanny state' label by a Māori Community Law Service manager. The Queenstown Lakes District Council recently proposed restrictions on residents renting their rooms on the short term rental site, Airbnb, prompted criticism from the company, describing the move as a "nanny state".
The city state of Singapore has a reputation as a "nanny state", owing to the considerable number of government regulations and restrictions on its citizens' lives. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of the modern Singapore, observed: "If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one". In an interview in the Straits Times in 1987, Lee said:
I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters–who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.
United Kingdom
In 2004, King's Fund, a think tank, conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people and found that most favoured policies that combatted behaviour such as eating a poor diet and public smokingthis was reported by the BBC as the public favouring a nanny state. The British Labour Party politician Margaret Hodge has defended policies she acknowledged had been labelled as "nanny state", saying at a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on November 26, 2004 that "some may call it the nanny state but I call it a force for good". The "Soft Drinks Industry Levy", the UK's sugary drink tax proposed in 2016 and effective from 2018, was described by Member of ParliamentWill Quince as "patronizing, regressive and the nanny state at its worst". , former Mayor of New York, has been described as a nanny state politician
United States
Although the term is undefined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it has entered use in the United States over the past decade by some political commentators. For example, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research think tank used the term in 2006 to describe conservative policies that protect the income of the rich. Conversely, the term is also used in an at-large sense against the legislative tendencies of contemporary liberal political ideology, with examples such as progressive banishment of tobacco smoking and the enactment of mandatory bicycle helmet laws. David Harsanyi used the term to describe food labeling regulations, the legal drinking age and socially conservative government policies. Another example of criticism was the response to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's May 2012 proposal to restrict the sale of soft drinks in venues, restaurants and sidewalk carts to 16 ounces.
