The classic fable:
The ant works all summer in withering heat to build his house. The grasshopper scoffs and lazes. Come winter, the ant is warm and well-fed inside, while the grasshopper dies cold and hungry outside.
The modern version:
Come winter, the grasshopper calls a press conference to show the injustice of the ant being warm and well-fed while he starves in the cold. BBC documentaries contrast the lives of emaciated grasshoppers with those of comfortably-off ants.
Parliamentarians call for an immediate tax on ants to provide social benefits for grasshoppers. The Insect Justice Bill soon becomes law, with retroactive effect, raising ants' taxes and fining them for not using grasshopper labour to build their houses. Unable to pay, the ant's home is confiscated, and he moves to France to set up a smallholding and live on EU farm subsidies.
Meanwhile the grasshopper has been moved into the ant's former home. Although summer is months away, he has consumed all the food and is again facing hunger. In response, the government sets up an Insect Inequality Commission, which says that more money is needed to tackle such social problems. By this time the grasshopper has turned to stealing food from other insects, and dies of a drug overdose while on remand in prison.
The moral:
Hard work never killed anyone, but too much government can.
