Yes, stay-at-home mothers have made a “lifestyle choice”

Blimey, George Osborne has got something right! Astonishing scenes. Suppose the government thought it a good idea for us to eat more bananas and, recognising that bananas have become extremely expensive, offered those of us struggling to afford bananas a modest subsidy to make it easier to purchase bananas. We might reasonably object to this on the grounds that the government should not be in the business of subsidising bananas but it would be strange if those people with no desire to purchase bananas complained that the problem with the banana-subsidy is that it does not cover the purchase of apples.

That, essentially, seems to be the complaint from “stay-at-home” mothers appalled by the Chancellor’s attempt to make childcare for working parents marginally more affordable. It’s like whining that because Jack has received a present Jill must too. Otherwise it’s not fair.

Now one might object that it is the surfeit of regulation that does more than anything else to drive up the costs of childcare and that offering modest subsidies to parents completely fails to address that problem.