In the United Kingdom, there are five million grown-ups – or ten per cent of the entire adult population – who have not done a day’s work since Tony Blair’s Labour Party came to power in 1997….

It would be truer to say those five million Britons are not so much without employment as without need of employment: They exist in a world in which “work” is an increasingly foreign concept. In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. One-fifth of British children are raised in homes in which no adult works….

It happens so quickly. The “abolition of want” starts with the abolition of stigma. And once you’ve done that, it’s very hard to go back, even if you wanted to, which there’s no indication Britain’s millions of non-working households wish to do. But, if, say, you happen to be the one western nation not yet fully drugged into inertia by cradle-to-grave welfarism, you might want to pause before embracing the same fate.

H/T Mike B.

Does anybody else think it’s kind of strange that in the USA, we behave like prissy throne-sniffers regarding a President’s address to Congress, while the British Parliament is alive with boisterous repartee and heckling? Witness this 2007 feud between Prime Minister Gordon Brown and David Cameron–

(And please do not cite procedural esoterica. I am aware that differences exist, but that’s not the point.)

UPDATE: From Slate:

In the United Kingdom, prime ministers expect less decorum from representatives. Every Wednesday while the House of Commons is in session, the prime minister spends half an hour answering questions—and enduring boos and snide remarks—from Members of Parliament.

UPDATE: I guess the answer to my question is “yes.” Alex Massie from The Daily Beast in praise of hecklers.