April 29, 2008...10:33 am
A poverty of debate..
I suppose I should be outraged by David Cameron’s laughable new found commitment to ending poverty. I’m not. Any time a politician feels the need to say they’ll tackle poverty, I’m pleased, because it matters.
Of course when that commitment is matched by a series of policies that will actually make matters worse, then some scepticism is in order.
Let me put it this way: If Labour in 1994 had said they were committed to a strong anti-crime policy, and that their policy for delivering this would be to reduce the number of police in the toughest areas and spend the money on laser triggered alarm systems for millionaires to protect their art collections, would this have been taken seriously?
This is what the tory “anti-poverty” proposals are; Cut Sure Start (which helps the poorest families) to fund health visitors (who go to the middle classes as much as the poor). Cut support for the poorest families to fund married couple allowances that help the wealthiest. Push Inheritance tax up to the two million mark while introducing welfare schemes that are shown to increase poverty rates . These are the Tory policies we know about. Others surely lurk undeclared inside CCHQ.
The Tory “poverty” campaign is a piece of short term political positioning. it’s the same as Geroge Bush in 2000 talking about compassionate conservatism (remember that?). What Cameron and his team seem to forget is that when you raise these issues, there will be a reckoning of whether you mean it.
At least there will if we get to have that debate.
Unfortunately the media* appears to have suspended all rational judgement about policy (from any party) and turned politics into “Heathers“, leaving us in the odd position that if you are popular you can say the most flagrant nonsense and have it reported uncritically, but if you’re unpopular saying that the sun would rise the next day would be parsed as a desperate push to reassure worried voters of celestial stability.
So great, let’s spend the next few months talking about poverty, about education, about the economy. Let us compare programmes, investigate spending commitments, work out tax implications. I promise you, people are interested in such things, if they’re allowed to be.
Now, a cynical soul might believe that the tories don’t want that kind of debate. I’m not so sure.
One of the interesting things about the new modern Conservatives is their peculiar brand of political self confidence. I suspect it comes from a belief that they have finally convinced people of their rightness by using a form of political linguistic judo, rather than changing core policies.
Tories have spent the last decade trying to explain why Conservatism is better for Britain that social democracy and failed. Now they have discovered that by talking like social democrats they can convince people of their good intentions.
As a result, Conservatives have not had to abandon cherished beliefs, they’ve merely been asked to talk about them in a new way (Family tax allowances becomes an anti poverty measure, for example). Some of these policies are good, some bad**, but they are all essentially Conservative policies. at the same time the true believers are re-assured - Tax cuts will come (but in time). Employment laws will change (but we won’t talk about it) and so on.
This means that Tory campaigners and strategists as confident as ever of the rightness of their solutions and now they have a new language to describe their beliefs, many Tories hunger for the debate that will finally destroy social democrat policy dominance.
I want that debate too, because I believe that when it is joined Conservatives will be faced with a very uncomfortable choice. Join the social democratic consensus unambiguously and for good or stay true to their values and lose.
The only way we all lose is if the linguistic jujistu goes undebated. Labour loses because the debate matters to us, the country loses because they won’t get what they thought they were voting for, and the Tories will lose because, well just look at what happened to George Bush and “compassionate conservatism”.
(and as a reward for getting all the way down here, make sure you read Charlie Brooker on Obama and 24 hour news and Aaronvitch on Brown.)
* aided and abetted by hacks, politicians and assorted hangers on like me who far prefer talking about who’s up and down than about boring policy stuff. Even I notice that i get more interest and attention when I gossip than when I write worthy articles on welfare reform.
** for example, I’m one of the more relaxed Labour people when it comes to allowing private companies to supply services to the NHS.
12 Comments
April 29, 2008 at 11:42 am
Without wishing to cross swords on the Tories sincerity about poverty I think you’ve caricatured their position a bit.
The Keith Joseph / Thatcher strain of Conservatism is now routinely assumed to be the only one there is. Vote Blue and you’re an unreconstructed free-market absolutist. You’re a well-read enough man Hopi to know that particular strain of Toryism is only c.30/35 years old at most. Understandable why it might dominate the horizon of 30-something media-types but it’s nonsense to say it defines the Tories for ever or that Tory concern beyond those boundaries has to be false.
One-nation Tory attitudes to state-spending in the fifties / sixties would make New Labour look like a hard right party now. 150 years ago (before there was a Labour party) the Tories were legislating on public health and education. This is all about different approaches to poverty not a lack of interest in it. For example (and I don’t have the time for a full-on fisk here but..) SureStart is highly questionable in terms of how effective it’s been and even the government’s own assessments have cast doubt on it’s worth. We can’t be in a place where any attempt to question that (and yes that might mean cut it in places) somehow destroys the credibility of the person doing so. A dialogue about what works and what doesn’t is valid.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat…
(p.s. I’ve tagged you with a meme - sorry)
April 29, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I really don’t know what that last sentence means!
I agree that the Thatcherite/Josephite position on poverty is far from the final word on conservative attitudes to poverty. Indeed there have been times when “conservatives” have been the party more likely to intervene on poverty than free market “liberals”.
However, I don]t think I’m misrepresenting current Tory thinking on Poverty. I read the IDS report and what struck me was a) there is an analysis of poverty albeit a very odd one and b) the solutions to meet that analysis are utterly insufficient.
That has been turned by the tory leadership into a commitment” on poverty which proposes all sorts of things that would either do nothing or actively make things worse, which are laced with what i regard as bromides on family life.
The family stuff is actually the only area the Tories could argue a case on, but here their solutions really are a joke. Nothing they propose is going to change mariage break up rates, divorce rates or so on.
April 29, 2008 at 12:55 pm
But we’re into party politics now - which is fair enough and all good fun but the thrust of your initial post was quite different.
“The Tory “poverty” campaign is a piece of short term political positioning”
You’re trying to support that assertion by saying their policies ‘won’t work’ but that’s a very different thing - a valid political opinion by all means but not related in anyway to the sincerity of their position or the conviction with which it’s held. And neither does it speak to the accusation that Tory concern for poverty is ’short-term’.
As I pointed out Tories were addressing social justice issues for years before the Labour movement was born - that’s not to excuse subsequent Tory failings or diminish the vital contribution Labour and the left have made. It’s just pointing out that you need far surer grounds than you have here to question the sincerity (as opposed to the efficacy) of their position.
(re: the meme thing - all is explained in a post at my place this morning)
April 29, 2008 at 2:16 pm
well as ever you are the soul of reasonableness cass - I think you should spend some time over ay comment is free learning how debate on the internet should be conducted!
Anyway my point is that the current tory focus is purely short term precisely because they.
Know it won’t work.
Let’s assume that the tories do believe that the root causes.of poverty are family breakdown, the permissive society and so on. In that case, if they cared about poverty their policy proposals are ludicrously insufficient and ineffective.
Since we can assume tory policy people are not stupid one can either choose to believe that it’s not that big a priority for them or that the proposals themselves are insincere. I take the letter view!
April 29, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I don’t want to make this a CiF-type rant but you’re discounting an obvious and straightforward explanation in favour of a juicy conspiratorial one because it fits your politics better - perhaps they just believe the policies WILL work?
It’s legit to think they won’t of course (I have many doubts myself) but not really legit to speculate that they KNOW they wont work and are being deliberately insincere about them. Where’s the evidence of that…?
April 29, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Argh, did a whole long reply which got eaten by internet explorer freezing.
i rest my argument that the Tory high command know their policies won’t tackle poverty on three elements.
First- that it’s obvious that the policy solutions don’t meet objectives. Family break up rates won’t be affected by marginal tax rate moves, because the marginal tax rates changed only in the late nineties and divorce rates have been stable since the late eighties. Marriage rates are falling, but actually _increased_ briefly after the abolition of married couples allowance.
The reason marriage rates are falling is that people are not getting married when young. (This is actually quite interesting, you can see the data here- http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/FM2no33/FM2_no_33.pdf first marriage rates for the early 20s are plummeting, but relatively stable in the 30s and actually increasing in the 40s. Twenty thousand more single men got married in their thirties than a decade ago. I think that indicates change related to relationship formation and choice, not tax policy. Personally, I expect these older weddings to produce a divorce slump in a generations time)
So, if encouraging marriage and disincentivising divorce matters, we know the proposals won’t work.
Second - an argument from history- rhetorically and stylistically, the Tory approach mimics the Geroge W Bush campaign strategy of 2000. George Osborne has used cited it as a direct inspiration for how to talk about social issues. We know how that ended.
Third, and argument from benefit. What will the Tory proposals do? They would represent a major shift in resources from the poor to middle earners. There can be logical reasons for doing this- economic stimulation, for example, but it is not a policy focussed on poverty relief.
Since I assume Conservative thinkers are at least as smart as me, I assume they know all this.
April 29, 2008 at 10:17 pm
We’ll leave it there with the observation that this is still all just supposition and conjecture - there’s no hard evidence that the Tories are knowingly offering ‘empty’ solutions.
e.g. there is a wealth of contrary evidence on the impact of tax incentives for marriage - that’s what the Tories would invoke.
April 30, 2008 at 11:28 am
I sympathise .I feel viscerally outraged when Brown pretends to want to .support Britain, ,wealth creation , victims or national coherence, public sector reform , sound money Liberty , Savings , Working families , Parliament or honest politics . Can we have that debate as well and you are welcome to you Coucil seat in Rockall when it starts .
Your assumptions are the usual ones . You believe in the alchemical creation of a perfect bureaucratic redistribution to cure poverty. In a sense you do in that clearly they will have slightly more money but you increase dependency and fossilise multigenerational vicious circles of despair as well as enraging the many whose efforts are rendered pointless. The congealed underclass are then obliged to vote Labour . Conservatives are well aware that standing on the door step and saying less is good for you is a tough sell , you are left with the equally tough sell ,to the middling, that they have not earned the money they work for. How is that going …oh yes badly.
For long term solutions hand outs cannot be the answer and yet you blithely continue to tell the lie. The slave vote is paid for you have lost everyone else . …..and guess what its all the fault of the Press. I take it a non stop publicly funded drip of progressive propaganda is not enough for you. You can always stop buying the Telegraph .I have to pay for the BBC.
. Why not stop shilly shallying around with it . As state redistribution is an unalloyed good ( says Hopi). Why not simply confiscate all earnings and hand out ‘need ‘vouchers. That’s absurd you will say and yet that is exactly the rationale behind your lop sided “debate” What you actually what is debate bounded by the public paradigms the left and their media friends have tried to set…but that’s a big subject , suffice to say many people would agree with the wish to cure poverty but not the idea of some jumped up do-nothing confiscating their money to hand it out to charitable causes after his wack. You have no place for the truth of the private sphere .
I see you have been constructing your misrepresentation of the facts on marriage . No-one claims that nothing else has changed or that society has not changed or that financial disincentives are the only factor . You however , reach the laughable conclusion that raw financial disincentives to marry /cohabit have no effect . Of course they do , and especially at the levels where it matters .I daresay you could prove by similar means that no-one has a kid to get a flat , but they do. We all know it , this is of a pice of the growing gulf between New Labour a country tired of being bamboozled with cunning presentation.
Marriage is for mutual support, every time the state seeks to extend its power it cannot help but to attack the structures in its way ;church community loyalty to place or people , all this is a village beneath the New Labour Reservoir .On the stats your points are irrelevant .Single Parenthood at low income levels is the problem not bourgeois divorcees this should be gone by now .Instead it is encouraged by Labour who want to replace the family with “Sure Start”. The people Sure Start is supposedly aimed at by the way , do not use it .I know I attended one in the middle of a very deprived area in Islington and had many amusing chats with two comedians an accountant and a writer.
The Conservative idea is to spread self reliant self respecting functioning society we are not however unaware that this is no good next week .That why David Cameron talked about a multigenerational project. Your overarching suggestion that Conservative rhetoric is chocolate coating the same old turd coming from New-Speak Labour fellow traveller , leaves me faint with breathless admiration …
Anyway run along Hopi your Union Paymaster wants a foot massage .
April 30, 2008 at 11:32 am
(Problems posting )
I have sympathise .I feel viscerally outraged when Brown pretends to want to .support Britain, ,wealth creation , victims or national coherence, public sector reform , sound money Liberty , Parliament or honest politics . Can we have that honest debate as well and you are welcome to you Council seat in Rockall when it starts .
Your assumptions are the usual ones . You believe in the alchemical creation of a perfect bureaucratic redistribution to cure poverty. In a sense you do in that clearly they will have slightly more money but you increase dependency and fossilise multigenerational vicious circles of despair as well as enraging the many whose efforts are rendered pointless. The congealed underclass are then obliged to vote Labour . Conservatives are well aware that standing on the door step and saying less is good for you is a tough sell , you are left with the equally tough sell ,to the middling, that they have not earned the money they work for. How is that going …oh yes badly.
Hand outs cannot be the answer and yet you blithely continue to tell the lie. The slave vote is paid for you have lost everyone else . …..and guess what its all the fault of the Press. I take it a non stop publicly funded drip of progressive propaganda is not enough for you. You can always stop buying the Telegraph .I have to pay for the BBC.
. Why not stop shilly shallying around with it . As state redistribution is an unalloyed good ( says Hopi). Why not simply confiscate all earnings and hand out ‘need ‘vouchers. That’s absurd you will say and yet that is exactly the rationale behind your lop sided “debate” .Many people would agree with the wish to cure poverty but not the idea of some jumped up do-nothing confiscating their money to hand it out to charitable causes after his wack,. Lets include that in the debate shall we
I see you have been constructing your straw man on marriage . No-one claims that nothing else has changed or that society has not changed . You however , reach the laughable conclusion that raw financial disincentives to marry /cohabit have no effect . Of course they do , and especially at the levels where it matters .I daresay you could prove by similar means that no-one ha s a kid to get a flat , but they do.
Marriage is for mutual support, every time the state seeks to extend its power it cannot help but to attack the structures in its way church community loyalty to place or people , all this is a village beneath the New Labour Reservoir .On the stats your point are irrelevant .Single Parenthood at low income levels is the problem not bourgeois divorcees . This is encouraged by Labour who want to the family with “Sure Start”. The people Sure Start is supposedly aimed at do not use it , I know I attended one in the middle of a very deprived area in Islington and had many amusing chats with two comedians an accountant and a writer.
The Conservative idea is to spread self reliant self respecting functioning society we are not however unaware that this is no good next week .That why David Cameron talked about a multigenerational project. Your overarching suggestion that Conservative rhetoric is chocolate coating the same old turd coming from New Speak Labour fellow traveller , leaves me faint with breathless admiration …
Anyway run along Hopi your Union Paymaster wants a foot massage .
April 30, 2008 at 11:33 am
..groan I sympathise….
April 30, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[...] A good blog from Hopi Sen about it here. Posted in Statistics | Tagged Child Poverty, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, IFS [...]
May 1, 2008 at 11:26 am
I thought there had been at least two independent studies on SureStart recently that both said it had a positive impact on the children you attended. It said they came out more confident and much more besides.
Polly Toynbee (who else?) mentioned it in one of her recent articles.
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