With admirable opportunism Sunder Katwala argues that the current frosty conditions make the case for more, not less government. As he says, everyone plenty of people like to rail against government in the absract only to find themselves asking the state to do more as soon as something – such as a heavy snowfall – makes life just that little bit more inconvenient.
And, to be fair, he has a point. Many people do think like this, which is one reason why there’s not actually a very hefty constituency for libertarianism. This is unfortunate, but true.
Nonetheless, even libertarians are permitted to argue that since the public highways are publicly-funded it is indeed the state’s responsibility to see that they remain open and clear of snow and ice. Alas, we don’t have any privatised main roads, so we can’t tell whether private toll roads would be swept and gritted* more efficiently than the state-sponsored routes.
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