Particularly shocking – and revealing – were the comments of the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt: while he didn’t actually say that poor people shouldn’t have children, he seemed quite relaxed that when they did they could face grim financial consequences.
Leave aside that children may have been born at a time when their parents were not on benefits, leave aside that only a small minority of families have more than five or six children, leave aside that children shouldn’t have to bear the consequences of decisions for which they’re not responsible – though these are all arguments that we must make. But what’s really revealing about this week’s announcements, coming on top of the measures in the emergency budget , are that they confirm a government that is hellbent on dismantling the system of social protection that’s been in place since the end of the second world war. Instead, we’re offered the big society to the rescue on the one hand, punitive withdrawal of support on the other, a stark return to the days of the deserving and undeserving poor.
How can Labour combat this, particularly at a time when the public finances are under such pressure? For superficially at least, the measures announced will have some popular appeal. It takes time for middle Britain to feel directly the damage of a divided society, and we fumbled the opportunity to capitalise on the anger that followed the near collapse of the banking system, when for a time at least it seemed that high levels of inequality and an excess reward culture were something the public would no longer accept. Now, though there’s anger and anxiety at the impact of spending cuts on public services, the lesson of the general election must remain fresh in our memory: the scepticism felt by voters that the welfare system’s fair.
Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet that we can fire to bring public opinion to our side. Instead, we’ll need a sustained, authoritative and convincing campaign, which not only builds public support for proper social protection, but which is visionary in its ambition for a modern, enabling welfare state. It’s vital that we start to do this immediately, not just to limit the worst excesses of this government and protect the poorest and most vulnerable from this assault on the support on which they rely, but in order to ensure that we deny this Tory-led government a second term – something we must not allow.
The experience of the past two decades shows how hard it has been for Labour to reverse the legacy of a Conservative government. Real achievements under Labour since 1997, in reducing poverty, improving educational attainment, better health outcomes and a reduction in crime, nonetheless sit against a backdrop of continuing high levels of inequality and seemingly intractable social problems: despite effort and investment, the impact of Conservative policy has left a long tail. So our priority must be to secure the earliest possible return of a Labour government, to prevent policies becoming embedded that would set us back for generations, wipe out the social gains made since 1997, create lasting damage to a fair society, and the greatest harm to the poor.
Personally with only one child and working full time, the loss of child benefit will be painless. But what about skilled teachers and others of the middle classes who will find themselves in the lowered higher-rate tax bracket? What if their spouses have exercised their right to stay at home to raise two or three children? These people are the ones who will really suffer but really, now that Cameron has declared himself ‘middle class’, all of us who cannot choose live off a private income should lower ourselves also and declare ourselves the new ‘working class.’ http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eleanor-Rathbone/133104790071809
I don’t quite understand why it’s be unfair to talk about the undeserving poor. If someone slogs their guts out for a lifetime, brings up children to do the same and has a real sense of civic duty, yet is poor, surely they are infinitely more deserving than someone who refuses to work, gambles away their benefits, has children all over town and is also poor.
And where does the child fit into your pot Liberanos. Your approach turns the child into some sort of fashion accessory which in the absence of sufficient money can be stored in the garage like a second car you cannot afford to run? Child benefit is to benefit children not parents?
and you are going to be the moral judge of that person are you Lib. ? and everyone else, whatever the reasons they are like that , people gamble to try and feel powerful don’t they ? usually because they are trapped,bookies run like open sewers on every street.Again..too many children,that will be lack of education won’t it ? etc etc Would be pretty costly to set up these moral courts too !!
Gosh. What profound and uplifting compassion. All poor are deserving. None is undeserving. This degree of charity shames Jesus Christ. I find my vulgar, worldly arguments too embarrassing to pitch, against such immense piety.
Liberanos I worked for 30 years never claimed a penny from the state, then one day I made a mistake or my company made a mistake, I fell at work breaking my back snapping my spine. I’m not a scrounger and nor are the people that live around me your another who watch TV and then decide we are all on the take, lets hope your not the one that gets knocked down or has an accident or ends up with cancer, because you would of course refuse the benefits would you not.
well we scratched you, didn’t we Lib.and look what crawled out !
So, despite the self-evidently ludicrous nature of the proposition, there still appears to dwell among us those who believe that all poor are deserving, none is undeserving. I hesitate to make such an easy and obvious rebuttal, but it seems it’s necessary. Hitler, Mao and Stalin were all poor at one stage. Does that suggest anything?
the doctor?