Tuesday 8th January

It is interesting that the great post-war consensus on benefits which lasted for about sixty years is breaking up.  After the Second World War it was generally accepted that poverty was a bad thing, and that when people fell on hard times there should be some sort of safety net.  Even Thatcher never really dared to challenge the principle that people at the bottom needed some help.  It was always, and sometimes only grudgingly admitted that most of these unfortunates were there because of circumstances beyond their control, although Norman Tebbitt’s ‘On your bike’ comment was maybe the first public raising of the idea that some if not most of those on benefits were ‘work-shy’, or ‘milking the system’.   And just as we bewail the anti-social behaviour of a few wealthy tax-evaders it is the failure of the system we should criticise more than the few who abuse it.

But what is happening today is a wholesale attack by the present Government on the whole concept of benefits.  Universal benefits such as Child Benefit are being eroded, and Tax Credits are progressively being reduced and will, I am sure, disappear altogether soon.  Even such innocuous benefits as the winter Fuel Allowance are now fair game for those on the right.  The problem with benefits being completely means-tested is that for many it is demeaning to have to admit poverty in the first place in order to claim that which they are entitled to.  Universal benefits carry no stigma and though not ‘needed’ by some are still appreciated by millions more who would never consider themselves ‘poor’ enough to need assistance.

We are rapidly returning to an earlier almost Victorian attitude to the poor, that they are somehow responsible for their own situation, and should be grateful for whatever crumbs we deem fit to fall from our copious tables.  ‘Why do they not work?’ the right wing asks (even of the disabled), incredulous that anyone should be so lazy as not to be employed. ‘Where are the jobs?’ reply the poor, ‘If we had work that paid us decently we would all rather work.’

And I can assure you that the National Minimum Wage will be next in the sights of our friends on the right, after all the market should be free, and if someone is willing to (or so desperate to) work for such a meagre pittance why should anyone stop them.