We are out of the euro, in the financial and footballing sense, and there was a certain inevitability about the latter. Away from the dreary scenes in Kiev last night, Westminster shifts back into gear this week where the battle for the United Kingdom will commence and the future of our welfare state is discussed, to name just two keynote events. David Cameron will seek this morning to regain the initiative after a desperately poor few months with a flagship speech on the welfare state. The speech is designed as a nod to his backbenches, nervous at the seemingly listless way the prime minister is functioning, and also a wink to the Tory press pack. Nothing brings a warm healthy glow to worried conservative faces than a morning talking about cutting the welfare state. That the ‘something for nothing culture’ of benefit fraud costs the taxpayer fifteen times less than tax avoidance and evasion has seemingly slipped by No 10 now that Jimmy Carr is off the front pages.
The key announcement – to axe housing benefit for under-25s – was heavily trailed in the papers yesterday. But today’s papers focus on another radical idea, of restricting benefits to families with three children or fewer. As a triplet, it is a nonsense to have the state tell the public how many children to have. But both ideas are cleverly targeted at those Britons who do not baulk at any idea, no matter how severe, on how to cut the welfare state. This is an issue that has the potential to press on Labour’s windpipe. Whilst both The Guardian and The Independent have sought to frame the speech as a ‘return of the nasty party’, Labour party strategists will acknowledge that Cameron has the ear of the British public. Much like the topic of immigration, welfare became a toxic issue for the Labour party. Ed Miliband may have delivered a rather half-baked apology last week, but the party remains unforgiven.
On Tuesday, the Commons opens with questions to the chancellor, George Osborne, before MPs debate two Opposition Day motions, on the NHS and on defence. As parliamentary debates go, all three are the totemic struggles of the day. Osborne inherited an economy that was growing at 1.2per cent in the first quarter of 2010, the fastest rate for nine years, and has since plunged the economy back into recession. Ed Balls has largely been vindicated but would be wise not to crow as millions of ordinary Britons suffer the consequences of Osborne’s misrule.
Elsewhere, the pro-union campaign in the Scottish independence referendum launches today, with Alistair Darling spearheading the cross party assault. The myth of Scotland’s first minister as an irresistible force has long since fermented in media and political circles. But the SNP’s popularity does not translate into support for separation. Salmond himself is prone to mistakes, and as liable as any other politician to lose his allure. His customary arrogance, an asset in the past, could begin to grate if Scottish voters sense that he is overdoing the brinkmanship in what is manifestly a serious moment.
On welfare, immigration and the future of the UK the Labour party faces many potential pitfalls as well as opportunities. The first two came to dog the party after 13 years in office and played no small part in the disastrous defeat of 2010 as voters concluded, rightly, that the party did not share – nor understand – their salient concerns. And to Scotland, the future electoral success of the party lies rather too dependently in the land north of the border. But considerations about Labour votes won’t defeat the nationalist argument; moreover we are, as Alistair Darling said this morning, ‘Better Together’.
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David Talbot is a political consultant, tweets @_davetalbot and writes the weekly The Week Ahead column on Progress
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Photo: Number 10
We should never forget the British Public’s ability to change its mind, though. I remember when our government beguiled itself with opinion polls on how popular ID cards were, only to find the public went on to change its mind.
Similarly in the late Eighties the idea of replacing ‘unfair’ rates with a flat tax everyone paid for council services was initially quite popular. We all know how the Poll Tax ended up.
Just because voters answer in one way when asked what could feel quite hypothetical questions about “benefit scroungers” (bearing in mind we are still some way off the implementation of Universal Credit) does not mean that they will feel the same when it is one of their relatives or friends that can’t get sufficient to get by on (or indeed any in some cases) once UC is in place.
Don’t get too sucked into what today’s polls say – such short-termism was the cause of New Labour’s downfall, after all.
Actaully Idon’t think the poll tax was as unpopular as the public were to belvie and the otres weren’t as unpopular with the pulbic as the polls made out at the time, it was just the NHS reforms and the lefty press making it unfashionable to be anti thathcer. similar the Rates weren’t as unpopular as belvied it was jsut the flow of htin g shtat mad eit appear the public switched their minds, Also ID cards were popular on the back of the terror attcks in 2001 and 2005 and the recession made them unpopular as we couldn’t afford them, I really don’t think that laobur sticking to opinion polls to win things liek ID cards lsot us the election,it was the economy and appearing out of touh with people, actually law and order was the only policy laobur was more popular than the toire son before the 2010 election and hte tories even without the cuts do’t appear popular with the public now, I actually think this article is right, and am suprised there hasn’t been more of a bakc lash agisnt it from anti Progress style leftists, welfare should be there as away to stop povert not subsidisng a life style.
The polls are the way they are because there has been little to no counter argument put forward. If the public are informed that it is their rights and their ability to have their family and their friends supported in hard times, attitudes will soon change. The sheer rubbish that has been spouted to try and make out all benefit claimants are scroungers and workshy shows how vile this Tory Government is. Yet it’s deliberate as this is a wider aim to dismantle to the welfare state and switch funding from those in need to the richest in society.
The Tories did this with universities, to prevent most working class and lower income middle class from being able to afford Uni for their children. Uni is only for the posh when it comes to the Tories view. They hate the concept of equality for all that gives people equal life chances for them they only want the master and servant to be the dominant thinking.
Welfare is a contract and should be shouted loud that it’s the reason people pay tax, to ensure help is there when needed. Yet if the Tories are allowed to destroy that contract what will those with least get out of paying tax? What help and services will they have access to while the state shrinks and people are literally left to sink or swim! The tax take however will remain the same if not higher but the money raised will go forever to pay for the failings of the rich. The vile attack against sick and disabled people is a prime example of what is wrong with everything this Tory Government is doing, yet to many of the public are blinded by petty ignorance in believing there all liars and cheats who claim. People are dying after being declared 100% fit and that’s a deliberate on the part of the Government. Sadly the wider public still buys into the con that people are undeserving and keeps seeking to be just as cruel to those who are ill.
The contract for why people pay tax and why this is meant to be a fair country must be restated and Labour has an opportunity to move the argument about fairness and renewed values in a modern setting. Yet if it does not it will suffer more and more from the public who will start to wake up when their rights, their support and their services no longer exist. If Labour does not get on the right side of fairness when the time comes it will lose.
All the while the press and the media are deliberately ignoring the UK economy and pretending nothing is wrong. Thousands and thousands of shops are going out of business every month. Jobs are drying up and the supply services for those companies are going with it. We are heading into 1982 all over again and far from just a recession we are heading into a depression.
The lie that there is a job for all on benefit is another con, 20 people are going for every job at present and most of these jobs are low paid and will not pay the rent let alone travel to work. Yet the Tories now want to force people onto the streets or further into poverty while failing to tackle the cause of high Housing Benefit. Instead of not capping the amounts private landlords charge in rent they attack the victim not the cause. The ill judged and cruel policy to leave those with little to be stranded in their parents’ home to their 40 with no hope for the future is disgusting. However it will not take long for people to wake up when they realise just what Cameron’s policy will mean for them.
Labour must step up to the plate and show fairness is the fabric that made Britain, and that trade and export is the only way to solves the ills, through jobs and investment. Kicking those who want to work and get on when their down is all about ignorance from the Tories to destroy the state and has nothing to do with helping society. By taken a line that is built on fairness Labour will win in 2015, it will not if it panders to the useless chunks of the biased press. Labour needs to follow its own values and its own sense of purpose and the means ignoring the press and the media.
Social justice in a modern setting is needed just as much now as it was in 1997, it does not mean Labour only responding to the left, but it does mean setting out a future that is based on hope and improved life chances. It’s time to kick back and condemn every rubbish policy the Tories come out with and never be afraid to upset the press to ensure the public come first not vested interest.
I wish to challenge your assertion that “Cameron has the ear of the people”. I suspect that your only assessment of ‘public opinion’ is via the publication of various Opinion Polls (whose number seems to grow exponentially). I will let you into a secret about Opinion Polls – they are nothing more than the prejudiced manipulations by biased parties of the ‘great unwashed’. Can you name one poll whose results have undermind the beliefs of the poll’s commissioner? We have all seen TV reporters looking skeptically at some innocent and igorant punter and asking “do you REALLY think that benefits should not be cut for the under-25’s?” and knowing the response they feel obliged to give.
The media are obsessed with Opinion Polls because, like ‘tweets’, they condense complex ideas into simplistic statements. Depending on Opinion Poll results is more a reliance on ignorance rather than informed opinion. Ed Milband would be better advised to engage the Party in educating voters rather than buying into Opinion Poll distortions.
I have to be honest Mickelmas and I say that I did not consult opinion poll evidence before writing that assertion. Though, in fairness, your argument above – for what it is – isn’t overly substantial; ‘I don’t trust opinion polls, they tell you what you want to hear, so don’t trust them’ seems to be the crux of it.
I can, though, point you to the British Social Attitudes Report which does neatly sum up my point: http://www.natcen.ac.uk/study/british-social-attitudes-27th-report
the constant refrain that ‘the British public’ takes this on board – or that it reflects ‘public opinion’ is to ignore several basic facts :
A. ways in which a question is framed will elicit a specific response. ie. do you think it’s right that someone who is working has less income than someone who does not?
1. this completely ignores the fact that many people who work only do so BECAUSE they receive benefits
2. the scale of housing benefit payouts is due to the high rents set by many landlords and the money goes directly to them
B. the skew of the press in the UK – and increasingly the BBC, being under constant threat re the license, means that the majority of the British public are singularly uninformed about the reality of benefits allocation, the shocking way in which the disabled are being mis-assessed and the relative levels of fraud @ 1 – 2%.
C. How the benefits system both increases productivity in the disabled and preserves the independence of many more – the less help from the state, the more onus on extended families who will in turn find it difficult to meet their own working commitments due to caring responsibilities. Thus in turn creating a further downturn in disposable income within the community.
D. a sizeable number of under 25’s housing benefit recipients are care leavers or women fleeing domestic abuse.
E. the downturn in NHS capacity and restriction in treatments highlighted by Andy and Jamie means that more people will become increasingly sick and disabled which will put more pressure on everyone.
A perfect storm.
None of this makes economic sense – to try to excuse Cameron by dint of ‘public opinion’ is redolent of saying well Bavaria thought Adolf was a jolly good thing so it must be the right way to go – whereas of course the German population became brainwashed.
– and just in case anyone has any doubts about the reality of this assault I draw your attention to the funeral today of Karen Sherlock – bullied to death by a disgraceful system which Labour MORALLY needs ensure changes for the better
http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/karen-sherlock-ordinary-woman-in.html?spref=tw
the only reason cameron has the public ear ,is because labour is capitulating,instead of putting forward any progressive dynamic arguments; tory light will not wash with the voters.