The blame game has gone too far when governments become guardians

The clearest example of this is the growth of the welfare state, the ultimate government risk-minimisation strategy. In 1965, only 3 per cent of working-age adults relied on welfare payments as their primary source of income. Today, that figure is 16 per cent, or one in six people. The less we are required to look after ourselves, the more government assumes the task for us.

And for all the cost, the erosion of liberty, and the learned helplessness, preventive government policies do not even work. In the case of childhood obesity, for example, research suggests that it is parents - not government or advertising - who have the greatest effect on their child's weight.

Effective or not, politicians keep spending money as "proof" they are "doing something" even though in many instances there is very little they can do. And the more preventive programs fail in their declared objectives, the stronger the pressure to bring in more controls.

The philosopher David Hume wrote, "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once". Instead, governments - often with the best of intentions - just chip away at our freedoms.

We need to recognise that, even in our modern world, we cannot eradicate all risks and all dangers, and that the attempt to do so signals a path to totalitarianism, not happiness. It is better to be left to make our own mistakes than to be smothered in the suffocating embrace of a paternalistic state.