Party lines, halls and mirrors on welfare
The Tories aren’t exactly “braced” for defeat in the Lords over the benefit cap as some reports suggest. I think it would be more accurate to describe their posture as “on their knees praying for it”.
They know there’s massive support for the cap amongst voters and that there’s the added prize of possibly painting their political opponents as on the wrong side of public opinion.
Labour’s posture (see previous blog) is a pretty excruciating back-bending exercise.
The Lib Dems are trying to pull off one of those dangerous exercises in politics when you let your rebels have a bit of licence, even lend them one of your valued loyalists in the form of former Party leader Lord Ashdown.
But the plan is that the rebellion doesn’t get out of hand, doesn’t drown out the overall message to voters that the Lib Dems support the overall cap and doesn’t persist too long after Nick Clegg unveils his hard-won concessions.
The concessions, not yet finalised, were nodded towards by Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith in interviews yesterday and today. The Lib Dems want and expect to be conceded “transitional funds” to ease the pain of the new policy for deserving causes. Who decides the discretionary payments – councils or DWP – and on what terms is all still to be crunched.
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There are 5 comments on this post
Gary,
How do “They know there’s massive support for the cap amongst voters” for the welfare cap?
For a start I can guarantee there’s no support amongst 2.686 million unemployed. And I don’t believe for a minute there would be much support if the facts of welfare were fully explained to the electorate.
Instead, what we get are the kind of lies and cowardly propaganda manufactured by the Daily Mail, Murdoch’s rags and TV gauleiters. Meanwhile of course Tory public school chummy bankers and others walk off with looted money and tax scams while their front men in the Commons and media attack the victims.
There’s nothing new about it. It is precisely why the great Nye Bevan described the Tories as “vermin.” That’s what they are and always will be. They haven’t got a social conscience between them.
The lies and propaganda are all too tediously predictable. We get their cowardly nonsense every time they steal more wealth. They’ll never change and nobody should expect them to.
Just like Ed Miliband’s play for the ‘squeezed middle’, the coalition understands the numbers involved. The middle ground is the most populous.
Most of the ‘electorate’ are working taxpayers or tax-paying pensioners – by a huge margin.
The numbers of mega-millionaires or chummy bankers are trivial – even doubling the tax they should pay wouldn’t dent the public finances, it’s just the politics of envy.
The numbers of lowly benefits claimants may seem substantial, but they are electorally small when set against the tax-paying majority.
What the coalition has switched on is the realisation amongst those tax-payers that, at a time when their own income is suffering, many others are living quite well without contributing – and that message is registering, which is why Ed M is playing it too.
It doesn’t mean that either the coalition or Labour is intent on beating up the genuinely unfortunates, but they have both recognised the real politik of comparing who’s paying with who’s claiming, because that’s where the votes are now.
I totally agree with the move to cap benifits. its unfair on the vast amount of working families who earn less than even the proposed cap of £26,000.
As for the concern of children being made homeless, at the end of the day people shouldnt be having children if they cant support them. its not right they expect people to pay for there children.
Its time we take care of our own affairs and for certain people to stop relying on the goverment i.e tax payers money to pick up for there own short comings/idleness.
And what, pray, is Aleysha Hall’s ex husband doing to provide for his responsibilities, especially his 5 children? When you have these cases on TV why don’t you ever ask questions like this? Why is taxpayer funded benefits the first port of call for broken families?
David Cameron, who has never lived on £26k in his life, makes a good case. It’s the equivalent of someone who pays tax earning £35k pa so anyone should be able to live on that, shouldn’t they?
But then we hear the real-life stories, like the single mum with five children on the bulletin tonight. She’d like to work full time, but where are the jobs that give her the flexibility to look after her children when they are sick? She’d be happy to downsize her home, but the coucil has nothing to offer her.
And when Iain Duncan-Smith, another millionaire with a £20k housing allowance, says the benefits cap is to enourage people into work, he never explains where all the jobs are coming from. We already have more than 2m people wanting jobs and there are going to be more.
Meanwhile Vince Cable kicks weedy restraint on top earners into more consultation and answers every question with ifs and maybes. Even if he eventually gets round to doing something worthwhile, the execs will have had time to sort out contracts that exempt them.
If a country’s well-being is measured by fairness, we live in a third-world country.